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THE LIFE 



Ulysses S. G-rai^t 



GENERAL UNITED STATES ARMY. 



BY ; ! 
HENRY a DEMING. 



HARTFOED; 1 
S. S. SCRAxVTON AND COMPANY. 

CIXCrXxXATI: NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPAKY. ' 
rillLADELPHIA: PARilELEE BROTHERS. 
CIirCAGO: O. F. GIBBS. 

1868. 



CU 



^>i 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, m the year iS6S, by 

S. S. SCRANTON & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut 



BosTOM : 
Stereotyped by Ceo. C. Rand S: Avery 



• I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 

TO 

Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, 

"The Father of the House," 

THE ARDENT ADMIRER OF THE SUBJECT, ' 
THE GENEROUS FRIEND OF THE BIOGRAPHER. 

MIjciT, in tbc'Sbirtn-nintb Congress, 

YOU GAVE YOUR RIGHT HAND IN SUPPORT TO THE ONE, 

AND YOUR LEFT IN CONFIDENCE TO THE OTHER, 

THE AUTHOR WAS FIRST UNITED WITH 

THE THEME. 



INTRODUCTION. 



THIS volume was undertaken at the solicitation of the 
publishers, who wished a life of General Grant for 
the people. 

There is no authority for the youth and childhood of 
Grant but his father : the son never consents to indulge 
in reminiscence respecting his early years, and uniformly 
refers biographers to the record for his career during man- 
hood. In regard to the Mexican War, I have been favored 
with some material by Hon. Mr. Washburne, who has also 
furnished me with data respecting Grant's life on the 
frontiers. In the campaigns from Belmont to Chattanooga, 
I have followed, upon all tlisputable points, the authority 
of Gen. Adam Badeau, in his " Military History of Gen. 
Ulysses S. Grant." I have frequently in the text expressed 
my obligations to the careful researches of this gentleman ; 
and I repeat my acknowledgments in this introduction. 
The telegrams, despatches, letters, of Gen. Grant, which 
have been for the first time given to the public by this 
accomplished historian, I have freely used ; because I have 
regarded them as Gen. Grant's own commentaries upon 
his own campaigns, written, like Ceesar's, in the field. In 
the Wilderness campaign I have relied upon raanuscript 

6 



INTEODUCTIOK 



reports, which were furnished me at headquarters, when I 
was investigating a question of legislation, by authority of 
the House of Representatives. I have also to express my 
acknowledgments to Charles J. Hoadly, Esq., of the State 
Library, for genealogical material ; to Hon. J. Hammond 
Trumbull, Curator of the Watkinson Library, for facilitating 
my reseairches ; to William N. Matsoii, Esq., for daily en- 
couragement and aid ; and to three steadfast assistants 
(whom I am only permitted to indicate), I am immeasur- 
ably indebted for lightening my labors and expediting my 
volume. 

I make no professions to acquaintance with military 
science. I can only see such system and methods in battles 
and campaigns, and of course can only describe such, as a 
civilian, who has only studied war in history, biography, 
and in Jomini's analysis of the campaigns of Napoleon and 
Frederick, may be permitted to discern. A full detail of 
all the military movements of Grant was incompatible with 
the limits of my volume ; and I have selected for full 
description those which best served to illustrate his charac- 
ter as a general. I have, moreover, attempted to avoid 
cumulative illustration. In the chapter devoted to " Ad- 
ministrative Experience," my authority has been the official 
reports. 

Hartford, April 28, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



. CHAPTER I. 

BIKTH. — PARENTAGE. — CHILDHOOD. 

[1822-1838.] 

PAQ3 

Plan of the "Work. — Pedigree. — Matthe^v Grant. — Noah Grant. — Noah 
Grant, 2d. — Jesse Eoot Grant. — His Marriage. — Sketch of Mrs. 
Grant. — Mother's Influence. — Birth of Grant. — The Old Home- 
stead. — His Name. — Boyish Susceptibilities. — Traits. — Anecdotes . 19 

CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION. — WEST POINT. 

[1838-1846.] 

West Point. — Martial Life. — Course of Study. — Recreation. — Grant's 
Capability. — First Examination. — Graduation. — Classmates. — In- 
struction in Law. — Preparation for Civil Government. — Garrison 
Life. — Jefferson Barracks. — Red River . . , . .31 



CHAPTER m. 

EDUCATIOX. — MEXICAN WAE. 

[1846-1848.] 

War. — War with Mexico. — Grant's Rank. — Matamoras. — View of 
Monterey from the Heights. — Forts Teneria and Diablo. — Surrender 
of Ampudia. — Ordered to join Scott in the Advance upon Mexico. 
— Grant's Enjoyment of the Campaign. — Vera Cruz. — Siege of. -~ 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAUB 

Enemy's Defences. — Cerro Gordo. — Plan of Attack. — Cerro Gordo 
carried. — Prisoners. — Capture of Pecote. — Occupation of Puebla. 

— Description of 38 

' CHAPTER IV. 

EDUCATION. — MEXICAN WAR. — CERRO GORDO TO MEXICO. 

Advance. — Mexico from the Cordilleras. — Occupation of San Agustin. 

— Description of Mexican Battles confined to the Genci-al Operations 
in which Grant was engaged. — Two Plans of Attack upon Mexico. 

— Organization. — Grant's Division-Master. — Grant on the San An- 
tonio Causeway. — What Garland's Division see. — What they know. 

— Charge on San Antonio. — Operations of Twiggs. — Operations of 
Pierce and Shields. — Repulse of the Assailants. — Another Charge. 

— The Eighth Infantry capture the tcte de pont. — Duncan's Battery 
opens on San Pablo. — Stormers on the Right seize the Salient. — 
Churubusco taken. — Demoralization and Retreat of the Enemy. — 
Pursuit. — Headquarters at Tacubaya. — Attempt at Armistice. — 
Before Molino del Rey. — Casa Mata assigned to Garland's Brigade. 

— Ready for the Assault. — Assault. — The Enemy's Batteries cap- 
tured. — Hand-to-hand Fight in the Molino. — Casa Mata blown up. 

— Reconnoissance of the Southern Avenues of Mexico. — Batteries 
established. — Bombardment. — Pillow's Approach, — Scott's Ac- 
count. — Garland aimed for the Alameda. — Grant flanks the Enemy. 

— Grant serves a Battery. — Honorably mentioned. — Street Eight. — 
Mexico is Ours. — Occupation of the City. — What Grant sees ... 53 



CHAPTER V. 

EDUCATION. — FRONTIER SERVICE. — CIVIL LIFE. 

[1848-1861.] 

Tactics. — Science of Command. — Genius. — Lord Chatham. — Grant's 
Marriage. — His Wife. — Torpor upon Military Posts. — Stationed at 
Detroit. — Life in Detroit. — Grant in Society. — His Powers of Con- 
versation. — Gen. McPher.son's Opinion. — " No Orator." — His duties 
of Quartermaster. — Influence of Duties on his Character. — Birth of 
his Children. — The Fourth lufiintry ordered to Oregon. — Stationed 
at Benicia. — At Vancouver. — Description of — Life at Vancouver. 
— Hudson's Bay Company. — Purpose for which they arc sent ac- 
complished. — Second Year. — Habitudes of Mind. — Commission as 
Captain. — Ordered to Humboldt Bay. — Resignation. — Farmer at 
St. Louis. — Collector at St. Louis. — Leatlier-Dcalcr at Galena. — 
Contrasted with other Civilians who were also Laborers. — Distin- 
guished ^Icn who have risen from Humble Life ..... 76 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHAT DID HE ACTUALLY DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? — HE ADMIN tSTEES THE 
DISTRICT OF SOUTH-EASTERN MISSOURI. 

PAOB 

Purpose of the Chapter. — Sir Arthur "Wellcslej. — Grant hears of the 
Bombardment of Sumter. — Exclamation thereupon. — Retrospect. — 
Grant drills a Company. — Presents himself to Gov. Yates. — Narra- 
tive of Gov. Yates. — Appointed Colonel of Twenty-first Illinois 
Infantry. — Marches it to Missouri. — Arrives at Mexico. — Commis- 
sioned Brigadier-General of Volunteers. — Assumes Command of the 
District of South-east Missouri. — Topographical Features. — Politi- 
cal Status. — Grant at Cairo. — Seizes Paducah. — Urges Fremont to 
seize Columbus and Hickrnan. — Polk occupies them. — Grant re- 
strained by Fremont. — Demonstrates against Columbus. — Encoun- 
ters the Enemy at Belmont. — Demonstration converted into an At- 
tack. — Officers with him. — Volunteers under Fire. — Scene of the 
Fight. — Enemy re-enforced. — Grant makes his Way out. — His 
Coolness. — Second Charge. — Withdraws to the Transports. — Criti- 
cism. — Results of Belmont. — Maxim of Grant. — Polk asks for 
Exchange of Prisoners 97 



CHAPTER Vn. 

HE BREAKS THE ENEMY's CENTRE AT FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON. 

[February, March, April, 1862.] 

New Field of Operations. — Fre'mont superseded by Halleck. — Change 
of Command over Grant; no Change of System. — Naval Service in 
the West controlled by Halleck. — Annexation of Paducah to Grant's 
Command. — Inactivity of our Armies. — Procrastination. — Rebel 
Strategic Line. — Left of the Line. — Right of the Line. — Centre of 
the Line. — Forts Henry and Donelson. — Plan of McClellan. — Of 
Buell. — Of Halleck. — Of Grant. — Asks Permission to Attack. — 
Denied. — Commentary. — Admiral Footc asks Permission. — " For- 
ward, Foote and Grant ! " — Grant a Minute-Man. — Situation of Fort 
Henry. — Description of Fort Henry. — Of Hieman. — Coup-de-Main 
instead of Siege required. — Task of Foote. — His Implements. — 
Plan of Attack. — His Attack. — MeClernand's Forces. — Difficult 
Marches. — Effect of Enemy's Fire on the Fleet. — Tenacity of 
Fleet. — McClernand delayed by Mud. — Sun-ender of the Fort. 
— Enemy in Retreat. — Saying of Napoleon. — Attack on Donelson 
not intended by Halleck. — Grant's Promptness. — Halleck intent only 
on the Defence of Henry. — Grant pushes on to Donelson. — Tele- 
graphs to Halleck. — Halleck urges Defensive Operations. — Grant 
for Offensive. — Calendar. — Donelson invested. — Troops stationed. 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAO« 

— Defences of the Enemy. — Night Attack. — Arrival of Rc-cnforce- 
ments. — Land Side of Donelson. — River Side. — Arrival of the 
Carondelet. — Attack of. — Retires. — Bombardment by Fleet. — Grant 
aboard Flajj-Ship. — Garrison masks their Forces to escape. — Attack 
on our Investing Line. — Roll up McArthur. — Oglesby. — W. H. L. 
Wallace. — Arrested by Lewis Wallace. — Enemy baffled. — Grant's 
Arrival. — Inten'iew with Smith. — Hurries on. — Encounters the 
Fugitives. — Surmises the Rebel Plan. — Another Maxim. — Acts on 
it. — Professional Soldiers in the Engagement. — Sketch of Gen. Smith. 

— Smith's Storming Party. — Success of it. — Scene within the Fort. 

— Pillow. — Floyd. — Buckner. — Pillow and Floyd flee. — Buckner 
asks for Terms. — Grant demands Unconditional Surrender. — Buck- 
ner surrenders. — Telegram from Halleck. — Forgets to thank Grant. 

— Thanks Hunter and Smith. — Reception of News at Wasliington. — 
Stanton's Commendation. — Nomination of Grant for Major-General. 

— Confirmed. — Donelson the first decided Victory. — Effect on the 
Countiy. — Strategic Line collapses. — First Communication between 
Grant and Sherman. — Enduring Nature of their Friendship . .115 



CHAPTER Vm. 

HE WINS THE VICTORY OF SHILOH. 

Grant assumes Command of the District of Tennessee. — Trip to Nash- 
ville. — Pei-sccution by Halleck. — Ordered to Fort Henry. — Letter 
of Halleck to McClellan. — Gen. Smith placed in Command. — "Chris- 
tian Morals." — Grant's Behavior. — Justifies himself. — Asks to be 
relieved. — Halleck mollified. — Sends his Correspondence with the 
War-Office to Grant. — Comparison with AVashington. — Grant re- 
sumes Command. — Enemy concentrated at Corinth. — Maxims of 
Halleck. — Topography of the Field. — Smith selects Battle-Field of 
Shiloh. — Smith dying. — Grant at Savanna, waiting for Buell. — Visits 
the Front daily. — Nelson reaches Savanna. — Army Corps stationed. 
— Position of the Corps when attacked. — Encampment, rather than 
Battle-Line. — Sherman's Opinion of the Battle-Field. — No Surprise, 
but no Expectation of Battle on that Morning. — Enemy drives in the 
Pickets. — Ideal and the Real. — Appearance of Grant in Battle. — 
No Display. — Manners in the Field. — Dress. — His Simplicity veils 
his Merit. — Grant at Savanna when Battle opens. — Hastens up. — 
Orders Nelson to move forward. — Lewis Wallace to be j)repared tc 
Advance. — IMoves up Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace. — Interview 
with Sherman. — Grant goes to the Left. — Stuart routed. — Prentiss 
driven from his First Line. — His Right Brigade gives way. — Sher- 
man's Left Brigade gives way. — Entire Line forced back. — Sherman 
clings to Owl Creek and sustains McClernand. — New Line. — Wal- 
lace and Nelson anxiously expected. — Second Intenicw between 



CONTENTS. ^ 11 

PAOB 

Grant and Sherman. — Hiirlbut and W. H. L. Wallace bear tlie Brunt 
of the Attack. — Give way. — Prentiss's Division captured. — Situa- 
tion at four o'clock. — Third Interview between Grant and Sherman 
at Sunset. — Result of it. — Grant orders Offensive to be resumed in 
the Morning. — Buell reaches Pittsburg Landing. — Interview with 
Grant. — Conversation. — Advantages of the Field. — Sherman's Hook 
supports the Zigzag Line. — Strength of Sherman's Grip. — Hurlbut's 
Description of the Enemy's last Attack. — Credit due to Sherman at 
a Pinch. — To Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace. — First Day's Battle 
characterized. — Grant makes his Dispositions for the next Day during 
the Night. — Stations the Corps. — Enemy suffering. — Advance in the 
Morning by Nelson. — Crittenden. — McCook. — Sherman. — Lewis 
Wallace. — McClernand and Hurlbut used as Supports. — Cohesion 
of the Line. — Obstinacy of the Struggle. — Progress of Nelson. — 
Crittenden. — McCook. — Sherman. — Lewis Wallace. — Scene at four 
o'clock. — Grant during the Action. — Leads a Storming-Party. — 
Enemy Routed. — Grant stimulates Pursuit. — Military Results of 
Shiloh. — Influence upon Grant. — War Maxims .... 153 



CHAPTER IX. 

HE DEFENDS CORINTH, AND WINS THE BATTLE OF lUKA. 

[May to December, 1863.] 

Contemporary Criticism. — Halleck takes Command in the Field. — Expe- 
ditious Energy contrasted with Scientific Procrastination. — Grant a 
Cipher. — Halleck fortifies. — Criticised. — He collects a vast Army. 

— Beauregard defies him. — Six Weeks of Toil. — Sends T. W. Sher- 
man on Reconnoissance. — Halleck slow. — Order for Battle. — Cor- 
inth evacuated. — Impotency of the entire Movement. — Beauregard 
retreats. — Eludes Buell and Pope. — Halleck goes to Washington. 

— Grant again in Command. — Strategical Importance of Corinth. — 
Price and Van Dorn. — Uncomfortable Position of Grant. — Starts 
Rosecrans towards luka. — Pushes forward Ord. — Grant's Plan dis- 
closed to the Rebels. — Engagement at luka. — Price escapes. — Joins 
Van Dorn. — Result. — Grant moves forward to Jackson. — Telegraphs 
to Washington. — Enemy invest Corinth. — Attack Rosecrans. — Re- 
pulsed. — Military District Enlarged. — McClernand's Intrigue. — 
Halleck's Conduct. — General Operations of Grant. — Orders Sherman 
to move down the River. — Van Dorn seizes Holly Springs. — Cuts the 
Railroad. — Supplies fail. — Grant establishes himself at Grand Junc- 
tion. — Criticism. — Grant at Holly Springs. — Rupture of Communi- 
cation. — Defences of Vicksbnrg. — Sherman attacks Vicksburg. — 
Failure to carry the Town. — McClernand captures Arkansas Post. — 
Grant goes back to Memphis. — Vicksburg defiant. — Summary . 185 



12 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE X. 

HE BESIEGES VICKSBURG. 

[January to May, 1864.] 

VAOB 

Topographical Ecatures. — Natural Advantaj^es. — Military Defences. — 
Grant at IVIilliken's Bend. — Different Plans. — Canal. — Lake Provi- 
dence. — Yazoo Pass. — Steele's Bayou. — He abandons the Lessons 
of Military Art. — Creates a Precedent. — Grant's Plan. — " Kegular 
Operations " converted into a "Movable Column." — Dissent of the 
Subordinates, — Sherman's Substitute. — Friendship between Grant 
and Sherman. — How Grant's Victories are won. — Comparisons. — 
Successive Steps to take Vicksburg. — I. Gr.lnt marches along the 
Louisiana Shore to New Carthage and Hard Times. — DifBculties 
on the March. — First Movement a Success. — IL Grant runs the 
Gunboats and Transports through the Batteries. — Porter aids. — 
Transports prepared. — Batteries open upon them. — Drop Anchor 
below Vicksburg. — IIL Grant turns Grand Gulf. — Iron-Clads batter 
the Heights. — Failure to silence the Enemy. — Disembarks the Troops. 

— Sherman's Operations. — IV. Grant transfers the Army to the 
Mississip])i Shore. — His Industry Movement a Success. — V. Grant 
fights every Army which appears in his Front between G^i-and Gulf 
and Vicksburg. — Fight at Port Gibson. — Grant hurries Subordinates. 

— Modifies his Plan. — Letter from President Lincoln. — Establishes 
himself at Harkins's Ferry. — Operations of McPherson. — Calendar. 

— Battle of Eaymond. — On the March. — Battle of Jackson. — On the 
March. —Battie of Champion's Hill. — Of Big Black. — VL Grant 
drives Pemberton half anniliilated behind the Fortifications of Vicks- 
burg. — Sherman reaches Bridgeport. — Interview betw^een Grant Jind 
Sherman. — Grant joins his Comrades on Walnut Hills. — Privations 
and Hardships. — How Grant was equipped. — Siege begins . . 209 



CHAPTEE XL 

HE CAPTURES VICKSBURG. 

[May 21-Oct. 3, 18G3.] 

Pollard's Assertion. — Glimpses of Vicksburg on Sunday Evening. — Forces 
in Vicksburg. — Natural and Artificial Defences. — National Forces. 

— Geologic Features. — First Day of luA-estment. — -Charge of Sher- 
man. — 22d of May assigned for a General Assault. — Bombardment 
and Cannonade. — McArthur's Approach. — McCleniand's Approach. 

— McPhcrson's Approach. — Sherman's Approacli. — Attack of Sher- 
man. — Of IMcPhcrson. — Of McClcrnand. — Of I\Ic Arthur. — Day's 
"Work a Failure. — McClcrnand calls for Ee-cnforccments. — Eepeats 
his Call. — Grant orders McPherson to rc-cnforcc him. — McClei-nand's 



CONTENTS. 13 

PAGE 

Congratulatory Order. — Sherman's and McPherson's Opinion of the 
Order. — McClernand relieved. — Grant re-enforced. — Investment 
extended. — Main Problems. — Labor on Intrcnchments. — Grand 
Result of Intrenching Operations. — Logan explodes a Mine. — Fight 
in the Crater. — Johnston threatens to raise the Siege. — Grant's Ex- 
pedients to meet him. — Constructs Countervallations. — Fortifies 
Haine's Bluff. — Despatches Osterhaus to Big Black. — Thwarts At- 
tempt of the Garrison to escape. — Want in Vicksburg. — Ecbel Sol- 
diers refuse to fight. — Treaty between the Pickets. — White Flag 
appears. — Pemberton asks Terms. — " Unconditional Surrender." — 
Interview between the Commanders. — Their Appearance. — Place of 
Meeting. — Pemberton refuses the Terms. — Bowen's Suggestion. — 
Written Terms sent. — Accepted. — Surrender. — Energy of Grant. — 
Logan's Division enter Vicksburg. — Meeting between Pemberton and 
Grant. — Amount surrendered. — Nominated Major-General in the 
Regular Army. — Letter from President Lincoln. — Congratulations 
of Halleck. — Comparisons. — Grant presented with a Sword. — Urges 
the Capture of IMobile. — Organizes Negro Regiment. — Goes to New 
Orleans. — Ordered to report at Louisville 206 



CHAPTER XIL 

HE RELIEVES CHICKAMAUGA, AND WINS ITS GREAT BATTLE. 

[October, 1863, to March, 1864.] 

Invested with the Command of the District of Mississippi. — Instnicts his 
Subordinates. — Before Chattanooga. — What he finds. — Determines 
to seize Lookout Valley. — Stations his Troops. — Longstreet's Attack 
on Geary. — He is repulsed. — Howard charges up the Hill. — Success 
of the Movements. — Bragg sends Longstreet's Corps into East Ten>- 
nessce. — Telegrams from Washington. — Fears for Burnside. — Grant's 
Labors elsewhere. — Supervision of Sherman's March. — Bragg's Line. 
— Cannonade opens. — Granger advances. — Orchard Knob earned. — 
Army elated. — Operations of Tuesday. — Sherman scales Northern 
Spurs. — Howard connects with him. — Hooker, storms Lookout Moun- 
- tain. — Battle tliere. — Enemy driven to the Top Crest. — Prisoners 
captured. — Telegrams from Washington. — Sherman threatens Ene- 
my's Line of Supplies. — Grant's plan of Battle. — Situation of Affairs 
on Wednesday. — Description of the Field of Battle. — Battle in Sher- 
man's Front. — In Hooker's. — Bragg withdraws Troops from the 
Centre. — Charge up the Crest. — Rebels demoralized and in Full 
Retreat. — Hooker and Sherman on the Pursuit. — Grant's Behavior 
in the Field. — Summary. — Sends Sherman to Knoxville. — Grant's 
Cai-e for the Sick. — Parallels and Contrasts with other Wars. — Kind- 
ness of the People towards the Sick. — Christian aijd Sanitary Cora- 



14 CONTENTS. 

TAOS 

missious. — Grant's Co-operation with the Commissions. — Extract 
from an Agent's Letter. — Anecdote. — Characteristics of Grant. — 
Undemonstrative. — Ho issues a Congratulatory Order to the Troops. 

— Congress pass a Resolution of Thanks to Grant. — Present a Medal. 

— Bill ofTered to revive the Grade of Licutcnant-Gcneral. — De- 
bate thereon. — By Mr. Farnsworth. — jNIr. Washburne. — llesoUition 
of Mr. Ross. — Bill as it went into the Senate. — Amendment of the 
Military Committee. — Remarks by Mr. Trumbull. — Mr. Ncsmith. — 
First Amendment passed. — Remarks by Mr. Howe. — Mv. Wilson. — 
Mr. Lane. — Mr. Nesmith. — Mr. Doolittlc. — Mr. Johnson. — Mr. 
Sherman. — Mr. Davis. — Mr. Fcsscnden. — Bill passed. — Grant 
confirmed. — His Feelings. — Letter to Gen. Sherman. — Sherman's 
Reply. — Grant goes to Washington. — At Willard's Hotel. — Attends 

the Cabinet-JIecting. — Speech by the President. — Reply of Grant . . 208 



CHAPTER Xm. • 

HE INVESTS PETERSBURG. 

[May to July, 1 SG4.] 

Grant as Strategist. — His Determined Will. — Comments of Mr. Pollard. 

— No Concert between the Armies. — Personal Qualifications. — Ad- 
vantage of his Experience. — Situation of Military Affairs when 
Grant received Command. — Instructs Banks. — Steele. — Sherman. — 
Meade. — Aim of the Movements. — Listructs Butler. — Co-o])eration 
of the Army of the James with the Army of the Potomac. — Transfers 
Officers. — Instructs Sigel. — Rc-organizes the Ai-my of the Potomac. — 
What Grant sees. — The Wilderness. — Position of the Army of North- 
ern Virginia. — Crossing the Rapidan. — Roads in the Wilderness. — 
Enemy advance upon the Turnpike. — WaiTcn Attacks. — First Day's 
Battle in the Wilderness. — Results. — Embarrassments of the Contest. 

— Second Day's Battle. — Ninth Corps join the Army. — Hancock's 
Attack. — Longstreet rallies Select Brigades. — Burnside's Attack. — 
Sedgwick's Front. — Settles the Question who can Pound the longest. 

— Develops Leading Traits of the two Generals in Command. — Orders 
given to renew the Contest next ^lornftig. — Enemy falls back to In- 
trenchmcnts. — Pursuit. — Warren's. — Hancock's. — Wilson's. — Con- 
tinuous Earthworks. — Nature of the Country beyond the Wilderness. 

— Death of Sedgwick. — Character. — Summary of Operations on 
Tuesday and Wednesday. — ^Martyrs. — Grant not responsible for the 
Slaughter. — Hancock's Attack on the Salient. — Success. — Terrible 
Battle and Slaughter. — Comments. — Casualties Discussed. — Tu 
Quorjue Argument. — Summary of Operations between the 1 2th and 20th 
of May. — Country through which the Army march. — North Anna. 
— Battles in the Wilderness unavoidable. — Flanking Movement danger- 



CONTENTS. 15 

PAGE 

ous. — Cannot be persisted in uniformly. — Cold Harbor. — Assault 
necessary. — Battle. — Losses. — Lee's Army. — Its Weakness com- 
pared with its Former Strength. — Question of its Morale. — Army 
transferred to the South Side of the James. — Why Lee did not prevent 
it. — Movement described. — Commeudcd. — Mode of Execution. — 
Pontoon Bridge. — Attack on Petersburg. — ■Responsibility for its Fail- 
ure discussed. — Grant's Account. — Smith's Reasons. — Smith's Re- 
sponsibilities. — Hancock's Participation. — Authorities. — Assault on 
Petersburg required by Military Considerations. — Failure. — More of 
£clat than Substantial Triumph would have been won by its Success 367 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HE RECEIVES THE SURRENDER OF LEE. 

[July, 1864 -April, 1865.] 

Author's Design, -r- Situation and Strategical Importance of Petersburg. 

— Problem of the Campaign. — Lee completes the Fortifications of 
Petersburg. — Design of Grant. — Not strictly a Siege. — Considera- 
tions controlling him. — Series of Engagements fought to ex^nd our 
Line. — To destroy the Enemy's Line of Supplies. — A Raili'oad Raid. 

— Operations on the Weldon Road. — Sheridan's superb Sweep. — 
Operations at Deep Bottom. — Explosion of a Mine. — Correlated Ex- 
peditions a Failure until Sheridan commands in the Shenandoah 
Valley. — Sherman's Correspondent. — Lee's Expedients. — Diversion 
to Washington. — Arming of Negroes. — Intended Abandonment of 
his Lines. — Grant's famous Order for the Spring Campaign. — Posi- 
tion of the Army Corps. — Lee concentrates on his own Right. — 
Falls upon Warren. — Repelled. — Eiremy driven into their Fortifica- 
tions. — Sheridan seizes Five Forks. — Lee attacks Sheridan. — 
Drives him back to Dinwiddle. — Behavior of Sheridan according to 
Grant. — Calendar. — Sheridan re-enforced. — Brilliant Action at Five 
Forks. — Sheridan's Part. — Fifth Corps' Part. — Cannonade opens. 

— Assault in the Morning. — Charge of Parke. — Of Wright. — Of 
Humphreys. — Three Corps join. — Last Fight, and Death of Hill. — 
President Lincoln at City Point. — Davis in Richmond. — Receives 
Message from Lee. — Eft'ect upon Davis. — Scene in Richmond during 
the Afternoon. — At Night. —-: The City Council. — Their Determina- 
tion. — Ewell fires the Bridges, Iron-clads, and vStorehouses. — De- 
scription of the Fire. — Weitzel's Carnival. — Shcplcy's Suspicions. — 
Convictions. — Cavalry sent to Riciimond. — Reception there. — 
Weitzel enters. — Army enters. — Skirmishers find Petersburg evacuat- 
ed. — Lee's Line of Retreat. — His Exultant Spirits. — Loses his 
Rations. — Constrained to break up his Army into Foraging Parties. 



16 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

— Pursuit. — Sheridan's and Griffin's Line. — Ord's Line. — Lee 
struck at Jetersville. — Chase changed to a Hunt. — Ewcll surrenders. 

— Grant and Lee exchange Notes. — Lee refuses to surrender. — Sur- 
renders. — Intei-view between tlie Commanders. — Terms of Surrender. 

— Critics on Grant's Methods. — Wilderness Campaign unparalleled. 

— Odds and Sacrifice of Life required. — Skill which all concede to 
Grant. — Responsibilities elsewhere. — What did he do in the Civil 
War answered 432 



CHAPTER XV. 

ADMINISTEATIVE EXPERIENCE. 

[April, 186.5 -December, 1866.] 

Eoebuck's Remark. — Sound Reason in it. — No Difference in Theory 
between Civil Administration and Successful Management of an 
Army. — Confirmed by Experience of Mankind. — Executive Ability 
required in the Civil War. — Administration of Military Districts, 
Civil as well as Military. — Illustrated by District of South-east Mis- 
souri. — Executive Officer of the Law of Nations. — Exchange of 
Prisoners a Belligerent Right. — Treatment of Negro Soldiers. — 
Correspondence with Dick Taylor. — Views of Emancipation. — Ad- 
ministration at Vicksburg. — ]\Ir. Chase in favor of re-opening Trade 
with Rebellious States. — Grant opposed. — CoiTcspondence. — Com- 
ments on the Term§ offered to Lee. — Pollard's Account of Grant's 
Behavior. — Feeling throughout the North after the Surrender of Lee. 

— Stanton's Order. — Opportunity offered to Grant. — His Noble 
Character. — Stops Recruiting. — Attempt on his Life. — Assassina- 
tion of President Lincoln. — Account of it. — Attempt on Seward's 
Life. — Complicity of the Rebel Government. — Implacable Indigna- 
tion of the North. — The Sherman and Johnston Basis. — Grant at 
Sherman's Headquarters. — Wisdom and Discretion. — Friendship for 
Sherman. — Advises another Interview. — Johnston surrenders. — 
Terms. — Sheridan's Exjiedition to Texas. — I'urposc of the Expe- 
dition. — Grant issues a Farewell Order to the Troops. — Disbands 
the Army. — Makes a Tour of Inspection. — Southern Animus. — 
Bill to revive the Grade of General. — Referred to the jNIilitary Com 
mittec. — Object of the Bill. — The Rank of Washington. — Gram 
the first General. — Bill passed. — Remarks of Mr. Flnck. — Of Mr. 
Le Blond. — Of Mr. Rogers. — Of "Sh: Raymoiul. — Of Mr. Delano. 

— Of Mr. Stevens. — Grant supervising Military Operations in Re- 
bellious States. — Report of Gen. Sheridan. — Of Gen. Jeff. C. Davis. 

— Of Gen. D. E. Sickles. — Grant's General Orders. — Carries out 
the Reconstruction Laws of Congress. — Protest against the Removal 



CONTENTS. 17 



PAOB 



Of Sheridan.— Appointed Secretary of War. — Recapitulation. — 
Mental and Moral Characteristics of Grant. — Improved by Nurture. 
— To be judged by his Actions, not his Words. — Quotation from 
Lord Bacon. — Interconnection of Generations. — Government to 
transmit Political Progression of Generations 482 



2 



LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH. — PARENTAGE. — CHILDHOOD. 
[1822-1838.] 

THE life of the man who saved the nation's life by 
vanquishing rebellion and destroying a rival 
confederacy will never lose its hold upon the atten- 
tion and interest of his countrymen. Where was he 
born ? what were his childhood and youth ? how 
was he educated ? what previous military discipline 
and experience prepared him for the task ? what 
did he actually do in the civil war ? — are questions 
upon the lips of all men. These questions I shall 
attempt to answer. His personal characteristics, 
bearing, look, and habits, his moral principles and 
practice, his mental capacity and accomplishments, 
will be themes of speculation and inquiry by future 
generations, as by the present. This curiosity I will 
endeavor to satisfy. 

We profess here to despise blood and lineage ; but 
no aristocracy is more inquisitive respecting the pedi- 

19 



20 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

gree of its distinguished men. Matthew Grant emi- 
grated from the county of Devon, in England, to Dor- 
chester, Mass., in 1630, and removed therefrom, in 
1635, to Windsor, Conn. He was one of the earliest 
inhabitants, the second town-clerk, and the chief sur- 
veyor, of that ancient settlement.^ Jesse Root Grant 
is the seventh in lineal descent from this fore- 
father.- 

The intermediate progenitors of Gen. Grant were 

1 Matthew Grant married Priscilla , Nov. 16, 1625 ; and among other issue 

had Samuel, born Nov. 12, 1631, who married Mary Porter, May 27, 1658; 
and among other issue had Samuel, born April 20, 1659, and married Grace 
Miner, for his second wife, April 11, 1688; and among other issue had Noah, 
born Dec. 16, 1692, and married Martha Huntington, June 12, 1717; and 
among other issue had Noah, born July 12, 1718, and married Susanna Delano, 
Nov. 5, 1746 ; and among other issue had Noah, born June 20, 1748, and mar- 
ried for his second wife, Rachael Kelly, in 1791 ; and among other issue had 
Jesse Root, born Jan. 23, 1794, and married Hannah Simpson, June 24, 1821 ; 
among other issue had Hiram Ulysses Grant, born April 27, 1822. 

2 We find, in Stiles's History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, that 
" Matthew Grunt was one of the original company who came in " The Mary and 
John," to Dorchester, in 1630; was a freeman there in 1631 ; removed to Wind- 
sor among the very earliest ; was second town-clerk there, also the first and for 
many years the principal surveyor ; was a prominent man in the church ; evi- 
dently was just and exceedingly conscientious in all his public and private trans- 
actions and duties. As recorder, he often added notes, explanatory or in cor- 
rection, to the records, which have considerable value to the investigator of the 
present day. He was the compiler of the Old Church Record, so often quoted 
in this work ; which, in the absence of some of the earliest records of the town 
of Windsor, assumes a value which can scarcely be over-estimated. In short, he 
was a pious, hard-working, conscientious Christian man, and a model town- 
clerk." 

To this passage Stiles adds the following footnote : — 
" In State Archives, in volume of MSS., relating to Private Controversies, 
p. 138, in a matter concerning lands in dispute between Joseph Loomis, jun. 
and sen., April 21, 1675, Matthew Grant testifies, — 

" ' And if any question my uprightness and legal acting about our town 
affairs, that I have been employed in a measuring of land, and getting out of 
lots to men, which has been done by me from our first beginning here, come 
next September is forty ycre. I never got out land to any man, until I knew he 
had a grant to it from the townsmen, and town's approbation, or about record- 



BIRTH, PARENTAGE, CHILDHOOD. 21 

well-known inhabitants of Windsor, Tolland, and Cov- 
entry, where they intermarried with the Porters, 
Miners, Huntingtons, and other reputable Connecticut 
families. It may be said of his genealogy, as has been 
said of that of another distinguished American, " It 
discloses no crime, and no disgrace ; but also no emi- 
nence." But, fortunately, the subject of my biogra- 
l^hy needs no boasting from ancestry ; and Mr. Ever- 
ett's well-turned allusion to the family tree of Washing- 
ton may be applied to Grant : " The glory he reflected 
upon his ancestors was greater than he could inherit." 
As far as research has been able to recover their char- 
acteristics, they appear to have been, as became the 
progeny of Matthew, a hard-working, earnest, up- 
right, conscientious, and law-abiding race. Noah 
Grant, the fourth in the line from the " model 
town-clerk," and the fourth also in the ascending 
series from the general-in-chief, was the captain of 
one of the Connecticut companies sent against Crown 
Point in 1755 ; and one, too, who, during the expedi- 
tion, surrendered his life in defence of English colo- 
nization. 

He was undoubtedly killed in the battle of Lake 
George, fought on the 8th of September, 1775, in 
which Dieskau, the flower of French chivalry, was 
cut to pieces with his entire army by General Phineas 
Lyman of Suffield, Conn., commanding provincials, 
and provincials only, from Connecticut and Massa- 
chusetts. A second Noah Grant, the grandfather of 

Ing after flie book was turned to me, which is near twenty-three years since. I 
can say with a cleare conscience, I have been careful to do nothing upon one 
•nan's desire,' " &c. 



22 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Ulysses, entered the Continental army as lieutenant 
from the town of Coventry. He rose to the rank of 
captain, and, having served with distinction during the 
entire Revolutionary War, removed, after its conclu- 
sion, to Westmoreland County, Penn., where, on Jan. 
23, 1794, Jesse Root Grant was born. 

At the mature age of twenty-seven, June 24, 1821, 
he was married to Hannah Simpson, the daughter of 
Mr. John Simpson of Montgomery County, Penn. She 
was herself born and educated in the same county; 
but in the nineteenth year of her age emigrated to 
Clermont County, Ohio, with her father, who was a 
large land-owner and an independent farmer. The 
portrait of Mrs. Grant has been etched by her hus- 
band's hand. I present it in his simple language, 
without presuming to change a single word. "At 
the time of our marriage, Mrs. Grant was an unpre- 
tending country-girl, — handsome, but not vain. She 
had previously joined the Methodist Church; and I 
can truthfully say that it has never had a more de- 
voted and consistent member. Her steadiness, firm- 
ness, and strength of character, have been the stay of 
the family through life. She was always careful and 
most watchful over her children ; but never austere, 
and not opposed to their free participation in inno- 
cent amusement." ^ 

I am rejoiced to find that Grant was undoubtedly 
one of that number of illustrious men whose charac- 
ter received its first and most essential impress from 
maternal influence. In the early and susceptible 

1 New- York Ledger, March 8, 186S. 



BIRTH, PARENTAGE, CHILDHOOD. 23 

years of childhood, from a mother's hps, he imbibes 
those simple jet fundamental maxims and principles 
which are the enduring foundation of all wise conduct 
in life,* all good institutions in human society. The 
love of truth, the sentiment of honor, fidelity, obedi- 
ence, constancy, are practical lessons alike for the lisp- 
ing child, the aspiring youth, the busy man, — at home, 
in the school, on the farm, at the head of the army, in 
the councils of the nation. As in the realm of Nature 
the components of the material world are reduced by 
analysis to a few simple elements, upholding, illumi- 
nating, fructifying the whole universe by the simple 
and omnipresent influences of gravity, heat, and light; 
so all the institutions of society, and all the relations 
of kindred, friend, and country, are inspired and regu- 
lated by a few homely truths of universal application. 
Fortunately for our race, these principles and max- 
ims are not so numerous or abstruse that the open- 
ing mind of childhood cannot comprehend and master 
them. It is a satisfaction to know, that in the case 
of Grant, before all the laws of science, all works on 
strategy or tactics, all rules of military subordination 
or command, he yields a filial homage and obedience 
to these earliest lessons ; and that his character, after 
all, but reflects that of his mother. Among other 
early influences which contributed to the formation 
of Grant, the effect upon him of the example of 
the Father of his Country must not be overlooked. 
We learn from Jesse R Grant, that "'The Life of 
"Washington ' was the first book he ever read." Un- 
equalled among the sons of men, as it has been well 
said, for those qualities which inspire the confidence, 



24 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

command the respect, and win the esteem, of man- 
kind ; universally regarded as a standard and pattern 
by which the merit of other men may be tested, — to be 
early penetrated with a desire to emulate his virtues, 
is to a boy at the same time both a safeguard and 
an inspiration. I believe I may safely assert that I 
discern the influence of many of the precepts and 
rules which Washington adopted for the regulation 
of his own conduct in life, in the conduct and career 
of Grant. 

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on the 27th of April, 
1822, at Point Pleasant, Clermont County, Ohio, the 
eldest of six children.^ 

The humble dwelling in which he first saw the lidit 
— a small, one-story, framed cottage — is still standing 
near the mouth of the Miami, on the northern bank of 
the Ohio. Since the emigration of his father, in 1799, to 
what was then known as the North-western Territory, 
the son Jesse had been exposed to all the ordinary 
hardships of frontier Kfe, combined with the extraordi- 
nary trials of Indian warfare. He was left fatherless 
in 1805, when he was but eleven years of age ] and, 
with the determination of one whose bread was to be 
earned by the sweat of his brow, selected at once the 
trade of a tanner as his employment for life. He seems 
to have experienced more of the vicissitudes of fortune, 
and to have been buffeted more by personal mishaps, 
than usually fiill even to the lot of a pioneer. He 
wanders from Deerfield, in Portage County, where 
his father died, to Marysville, Ky., where he went as 

1 Ulysses, Samuel, Clara, Virginia, Orvil L., and Mary Frances. 



BIRTH, PAnEXTAGE, CHILDHOOD. 25 

an apprentice to his lialf-brother, to learn the trade 
I have already indicated. His hostility to the insti- 
tution of slavery was the reason which induced him 
to return to Ravenna, Ohio. He was driven from this 
place by the fever and ague ; and it is not until the 
close of the year 1820, that the wanderings of Jesse 
seem finally to terminate at Point Pleasant, where 
Ulysses was born. According to the testimony of the 
father, the maternal grandmother of the future general 
of the army was fascinated with the exploits of the 
wily Ithacan chief who introduced the wooden horse 
into Troy, and was anxious that the first-born of 
Jesse's house should be named Ulysses. The mater- 
nal grandfather, it is presumed, was equally captivated 
w^ith Tyrian history ; for he was determined that the 
child should be christened Hiram. This family jar was 
finally compromised by bestowing upon him the names 
of both of the old people's heroes ; and he was accord- 
ingly called Hiram Ulysses. This name he bore until 
he was recommended to the Secretary of War by the 
Hon. Thomas L. Hamer, a member of Congress from 
Ohio, for a cadetship in West Point, by the name of 
Ulysses Simpson Grant. The fact that Simpson was 
the maiden name of his mother, and was also borne 
by one of his brothers as a Christian name, undoubt- 
edly originated the mistake.^ 

To Ulysses S. Grant, the commission was issued, 
appointing him to the Military Academy : by this 
name he was entered upon its roster; and all the 
applications of the young cadet to the Secretary of 

1 Rev. P. C. Headley's Life and Deeds of Lieut.-Gen. Grant, where it is 
quoted as a communication from Jesse Root Grant. 



26 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

War, to have the misnomer corrected, proved unavail- 
ing. When he graduated from the institution, he 
was hailed as Ulysses S. Grant, both in his brevet as 
second lieutenant and in his diploma. By this name, 
he has since been known j and by this name will be 
known forever.^ 

The reminiscences of a doting father, now in his 
seventy-fifth }■ ear, are our only source of information 
respecting the early years of Grant. They are, as 
might be expected, superficial in their character • for, 
at the period to which they relate, the father had 
neither the time nor the inclination to penetrate into 
the growing child's deeper communings with himself 
We, of course, look here in vain for any conclusive 
proof that the " boy was father of the man," or that 
his manhood has been an attempt to realize in the 
deeds of life the dreams of childhood. All early 
premonitions of genius must be received with some 
grains of allowance, when published after they have 
been justified by the event. Ulysses w^as born and 
reared on the river-side ; and his first tottering walks 
were unquestionably bounded b\^ the tannery, which 
is presumed to have been within convenient distance 
of the paternal abode. He grew up to years of dis- 
cretion amid the changeful skies, variable climate 
and productions, of the northern half of the temper- 
ate zone. Bred in a frugal homestead, in a secluded 
and unpretending neighborhood, educated for the 
first seventeen years of his life in a humble village- 
school, his inner life as a boy was that of ten thou- 

1 Cadoau's !Militarj' History of Gen. Grant. 



BIRTH, PARENTAGE, CHILDHOOD, 27 

sand urchins with similar environment. He gazes, 
doubtless, with mute awe at the toWering \yestern 
steamboat, puffing spasmodically as its huge mass 
ploughs the Ohio. He peers with the big eyes of won- 
der into the mystery of the tan-vats. Like innumer- 
able other striplings with no more poetic fancy than 
himself, his uninitiated eye begins, gradually, to 
admire the shifting scenery of the heavens as sinking 
day brings out the more splendid pageant of the 
night, until the stars in turn, one by one, fade away 
before the purpling dawn. He exults in the voice 
of spring, the song of birds, the green luxuriance of 
summer, the golden abundance of the harvest, the 
masquerading attire of our sober forests in the fall. 
He pines, too, perhaps, at the falling leaf, the wailing 
winds, the naked tree-tops, the morning frost, the 
white pall of snow descending on the fading land- 
scape, and the dancing and murmuring waters which 
he loved, wrapped in the chilling embrace of the 
ice. 

In addition, however, to these boyish susceptlbill- 
ties, his inquisitive biographers have discovered that 
the peculiar distinction of his career was clearly fore- 
shadowed, even in childhood, by more remarkable 
traits. No famous man's early history was ever 
searched in vain for such intimations. We are in- 
formed that the wonderino- villasrers detect the future 
warrior in the composure with which his baby fingers 
pressed the trigger of a loaded pistol, which some 
one had insanely permitted him to handle, until it 
was discharged with a loud report ; and that a 
prophetic bystander discerned the germs of herjoic 



28 LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 

achievement in tlie pluck with which the lisping 
prattler shouted, " Fick it again, fick it again ! " 

At school, we learn that he supplied his want of 
quickness by a dogged diligence which demanded 
the "unconditional surrender" of his tasks; that he 
attacked a knotty question with " slow but sure " ap- 
proaches; and that, when temporarily thwarted, he 
alwaj's " fought it out on that line " until he eventu- 
ally won ; that he told his teacher one day, that the 
word " can't " was not in his dictionary ; that he com- 
mitted to memory pages which he did not compre- 
hend at the time, with the comforting assurance that 
they would not be wasted upon his maturer intellect ; 
that the genuine manliness of his feelings, and the 
dignity of his deportment, wdien a boy, prognosticated 
the sterlino- characteristics which the man veils under 
a charitable sj^irit and an unpretending demeanor; 
and that an astounded phrenologist who once manijD- 
ulated his youthful cranium, exultingly exclaimed, 
" You need not be surprised, if at some day this boy 
fills the presidential chair." His remarkable fondness 
for horses is a well-established trait of his boyhood ; 
breaking them to saddle and harness with his own 
hand, and teaching them some accomplishments of 
the ring. He was a good equestrian at nine years 
of age. He could drive a pair of horses alone at 
ten. At the age of eight, he could ride at full speed, 
bare-back, and standing on one foot. In this connec- 
tion, an anecdote is dropped by the paternal gossip, 
which deserves to be preserved as a graphic descrip- 
tion of a scene through which many smart lads have 
passed, and as indicating in this particular instance 



BIRTH, PARENTAGE, CHILDHOOD. 29 

some of that pluck, and tenacity of will, which dis- 
tinguished the Wilderness campaign. " Once, when 
he was a boy, a show came along, in which there 
was a mischievous pony, trained to go round the ring 
like lightning; and he was expected to throw any 
boy that attempted to ride him. 

" ' Will any boy come forward and ride this pony ? ' 
shouted the ring-master. 

" Ulysses stepped forward, and mounted the pony. 
The performance began. Round and round and 
round the ring went the pony, faster and faster, 
making the greatest effort to dismount the rider; 
but Ulysses sat as steady as if he had grown to the 
pony's back. Presently out came a large monkey, 
and sprang up behind Ulysses. The people set up a 
great shout of laughter, and on the pony ran ; but it 
all produced no effect on the rider. Then the ring 
master made the monkey jump up on to Ulysses' 
shoulders, standing with his feet on his shoulders, and 
with his hands holding on to his hair. At this, there 
was another and a still louder shout ; but not a muscle 
of Ulysses' face moved : there was not a tremor of 
his nerves. A few more rounds, and the ring-master 
gave it up : he had come across a boy that the pony 
and the monkej^ both could not dismount." ^ At the 
immature age of twelve, and small, too, for his years, 
he succeeded in loading heavy maple-logs into his 
wagon by an ingenious expedient, in which an in- 
clined tree and the horse are made to do the work. 
The mechanical skill cannot be fully explained to the 
comprehension of the reader without a diagram. I 

1 New-York Ledger, March 7, 1868. 



30 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

freely admit that it is a specimen of engineering 
most wonderful for a boy of twelve. It indicates a 
tendency to supplement physical weakness by head 
work. To my mind, it is one of the most significant 
incidents related of his boyhood. It strongly fore- 
shadows a disposition not to be thwarted by trifles ; 
a precocious superiority to mere obstacles, which, 
when fully developed, might be expected to over- 
come those difficulties which are pronounced insur- 
mountable. 



CHAPTER II. 

EDUCATION.— WEST POINT. 
[1838-1846.] 

AN exchange from the stagnation of Point Pleas- 
ant to the animation, parade, and etiquette of 
West Point, must have been a memorable era in the 
life of young Grant. By such instruction from Na- 
ture, and such training in the schoolroom, as I have 
indicated, he had prepared himself to pass the rigor- 
ous examination of the Academic Board in the pri- 
mary branches of learning ; while his perfect physical 
health and development defied the most scrutinizing 
tests of the surgeons of the post. He entered the 
Military Academy in June, 1838 ; and his first expe- 
rience of martial life was in the licensed squad-drill to 
which the pleh is subjected by the remorseless com- 
pany officers of the cadet battalion, and in the unli- 
censed hazing with which the new recruit is ruthlessly 
disciplined during his first season in camp. At early 
dawn, he is marched to and fro with the awkward 
squad, over that famous plateau, to the monotonous 
" One, two, one, two, " which so frequently breaks 
upon the morning nap of the guest at Roe's ;. and he 
may esteem himself fortunate if he is not rushed up 

31 



32 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT, 

the rugged road to Fort Putnain, at double-quick, 
on an empty stomach. When drill is dismissed, he 
betakes himself, with assumed composure, but with 
real anxiety, to the ambushes, surprises. Hank-move- 
ments, attacks in front and rear, which the senior 
cadets are preparing for him in the camp. 

Life at West Point, though attractive in its mere 
external aspects, is still more so in its internal rela- 
tions to the mind and character of the national eUve. 
He learns there self-control and obedience, which are 
no despisable attainments, either for the man or the 
soldier. With a course of study so difficult that it 
tasks all the strength, and so varied that it addresses 
every faculty of the mind, the student has only to be 
faithful to himself and his opportunities, and he may 
acquire that extreme degree of mental control which 
enables its fortunate possessor to turn the whole force 
and volume of his intellect, w^ith equal facility, upon 
any subject and in any direction. Self-sacrificing 
patriotism is imbibed in the atmosphere, and fostered 
by all the associations, of the national school ; and the 
genius of the place, its history, trophies, mementoes, 
fire the spirit, and magnetize the soul. 

The daily routine of cadet-life is somewhat monot- 
onous. Drill and study are the accustomed order, re- 
lieved onl}^ by the evening dress-parade, the inviting 
ramble through scenery charming alike by natural 
beauty and historic interest, the " Board of Visitors, " 
annual encampments, graduations, and hops. Mar- 
tial law governs this military post ; and it is an effi- 
cient curb upon habits of irregularity and dissipation. 
Temperance and continence, within its jurisdiction, 



EDUCATION, WEST POINT. 33 

forfeit their place as virtues; for tliey are enforced 
upon the young soldier by inexorable necessity. 
Even a stolen visit to Benny Havens, a rollicking 
song by stealth, the smuggling-in per steamer of 
contraband packages, under the pains and penalties 
of a court-martial, are too excruciating substitutes for 
genuine sport to be very seductive. 

Grant encounters the severe exactions of the West- 
Point course with no preparatory education worthy 
of the name. " Hasten slowly " was written on his 
forehead early in life ; and those who knew him best 
expected from him a persistent rather than a brilliant 
scholarship in the intellectual exercises of the insti- 
tution, and decided superiority only in the practical 
departments of military instruction. Both expecta- 
tions were justified by his career as a cadet. Abstract 
mathematics, topographical engineering, and the sci- 
ence of war, were conquered by his characteristic 
tenacity of will. Practical engineering succumbed 
with less difficulty ; while infantry, artillery, and cav- 
alry tactics were easily mastered. 

He passed with eclat that " bridge of sighs," the 
first examination, and all the subsequent ones with 
no dishonor ; earning successively the rank of corpo- 
ral, sergeant, and commissioned officer of cadets. It 
is no small test, both of physical and mental prowess, 
to graduate at West Point. Feeble intellects yield to 
the severity of the studies, and feeble bodies to the 
hardships of the drill. Genuine attainment only, can 
stand the searching ordeal of its four annual exami- 
nations ; and the rules and regulations in regard to 
deportment and behavior are so trying to the careless 



8i LIFE OF GEXERAL GRANT. 

buoyancy and undisciplined spirit of youth, that a 
dij)loraa upon any terms should be regarded, not as a 
mere ovation, but a triumph. When we consider 
that the untutored boy from the woods sustained him- 
self in every trial of a class from which seventy were 
dropped ; that he attained to the rank of twenty-one 
in a graduating class of thirty-nine, thus distancing 
threescore and ten who entered the race, and win- 
ning over eighteen who finally came to the goal; 
when we consider, also, that he never lost position or 
forfeited class-rank by demerits, — we must yield to 
him the credit of more than ordinary capacity and 
subordination. 

The class of 1843 was led by William B. Franklin, 
who earned the grade of major-general by distin- 
guished service in the recent civil war. Among its 
members were Christopher C. Augur, who served with 
the same grade in the Department of the Gulf; Rufus 
Ingals, Grant's devoted quartermaster in the Wil- 
derness campaign ; Frederick T. Dent, his future 
brother-in-law and aid, both in his campaigns and 
in the War Department ; and most fortunate of all, 
because his immortality is assured, Joseph J. Rey- 
nolds, who gloriously surrendered iip his life in that 
terrific struggle under Seminary Ridge, on the first 
of Gettysburg's crowning days. 

The first order which issues to the Q-radnatins: cadet 
may send him to some embryo territory in the West, 
and impose upon him at once the important duties of 
civil administration ; or it may despatch him to the 
frontiers, within cannon-shot of a foreio;n fiivj:. where he 
may be called to adjudicate, upon principles of public 



EDUCATION", WEST POINT. 35 

law, the perplexing questions which frequently arise 
between contiguous powers. During his career as 
an officer, he can hardly escape being placed in such 
relations. To prepare him for the intelligent dis- 
charge of these important positions is no insignificant 
part of the West-Point course. He is, therefore, 
taught French as the language of diplomatic inter- 
course, and Spanish as the tongue of our Mexican 
neighbors. He is indoctrinated in the laws of na- 
tions, the jurisprudence of the United States, and the 
principles of municipal law. He is made as familiar 
with the authoritative commentaries of Kent and 
Wheaton's " International Code " as with Mahan's 
" Field Fortification " and Benton's " Course of Ord- 
nance and Gunnery." 

It is an error to suppose that our future of&cers are 
instructed only in what pertains to war as a theory 
and an art. Their preparation for civil affairs is as 
thorough and complete as that of the student in our 
colleges, or the lawyer in our towns. With sapping, 
mining, mortar-practice, and tactics for garrison and 
siege, are blended the logical rules and theories by 
which truth is eliminated and sophistries detected. 
With the science of war, which desolates, is inter- 
woven the science of morals, which renovates and 
ameliorates the world. 

Nor should it be forgotten, in estimating the value 
of an education at the National Academy in strength- 
ening the faculties of the mind, enlarging its compre- 
hension, and preparing the graduate for useful and 
honorable service, that not only chemistry, which 
especially relates to fabricating the materiel of war, 



36 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

is embraced in its course of study, but astronomy, 
mechanics, physics, mineralogy, and the philosophy of 
history, — the compass and the chart to him who 
would guide sagaciously the Ship of State. In a dis- 
turbed era, with our domestic relations all embroiled, 
what better education can be prescribed for the 
American citizen ? 

With a head stuffed with the learning of the school ; 
with ambition kindled, and patriotism exalted, by the 
genius of the place ; with a mind skilled to manoeuvre, 
attack, and defend ; a hand adroit in piling up re- 
doubts and stockades, and in digging rifle-pits and 
intrenchments, and apt in constructing fascines, hur- 
dles, and sap-rollers; with all his sensibilities vivid, 
all his senses keen, intent, animated, the model of 
physical power and activity, — Cadet Grant is 
launched into the stormy ocean of life. 

In 1843, the army was hardly ten thousand strong, 
and scattered in small squads over our immense area 
of territory. Garrison-life at this time was languid 
beyond all expression, and was chiefly occupied with 
expedients for killing time. To Grant, with such 
native vigor and acquired energy, a descent from 
West Point upon such a " Castle of Indolence " was 
a terrible shock. 

Ennui is the protest of active faculties against the 
denial to them of appropriate employment. To sub- 
ject a man for four or five years to the incessant 
application required by the West-Point curriculum, 
to sharpen up all the powers of his mind to their 
keenest edge, to prepare him by every mental and 



EDUCATION, WEST PO^NT. 37 

athletic drill for unflagging labor, and then forthwith 
send him to mildew and to rust at some desolate 
post garrisoned only by a sergeant's command, is to 
condemn him at once to self-torture and self-torment. 
And yet this was the uniform habit of the Government 
some twenty-five years ago : this was the process to 
which the bre vetted second lieutenants of 1843 were 
subjected. I do not propose to follow Grant to Jef- 
ferson Barracks and the Red River : his subsequent 
career is too crowded with mighty events to leave 
any space for the tedium of the ambitious and ener- 
getic soldier, while waiting for that active employ- 
ment to which he had been so vigorously trained. 



CHAPTER III. 

EDUCATION. — MEXI CAN WAR. 
[1846-1848.] 

GRIM -VIS AGED War presents no alluring front 
to the most dauntless soldier ; but it is no exag- 
geration to say that Grant would have embraced her 
in his arras rather than have been chained to the 
Peace establishment with ennui devouring his soul. 
Familiarity with War had not yet bred disgust. He 
was fresh from her famous school. He had been 
initiated in her cruel arts and mysteries ; had conned 
her entangling maxims, and tracked her crimson footr 
steps over the desolated earth ; with maps and plans 
before him, and with critical eye, he had surveyed 
her renowned Aceldamas ; he had, as part of his daily 
task, analyzed her infernal ingenuity in concentrating 
and scattering armies ; and, before models of her most 
formidable strongholds, had sat down as a besieger, and 
approached, stormed, and captured them. Through 
Jomini's animated pages he had marched, counter- 
marched, and halted at points of vantage ; drawn 
up and extended lines of battle ; flanked, and pierced 
the centre; and charged, vanquished, and pursued, — 
with Frederick and Napoleon. He had almost seen 
War in vision, and toyed with her snaky locks, and 



EDCCATIOK, MEXICAN WAR. 39 

played with her thunder-bolts. Like a votary of the 
black-art, he felt an irresistible impulse to utter the 
cabalistic spell which should usher him into the visi- 
ble presence of the demon. In a word, he had the 
natural inclination of all men who have mastered 
theories to apply their principles to practice. 

War was now waving her torch along our frontiers. 
The surcharged clouds were lowering on the south- 
western horizon. Her birds of ill-omen, snuffing the 
carnage afar, were gathering in from every side. 
Lines of bristling bayonets were confronting each 
other on opposite banks of the Rio Grande. 

Grant was now full second lieutenant, and still 
attached to the Fourth Infantry ; and he m^y be said 
to have breathed once more, when the order reached 
him, in the remote swamps of Louisiana, to join the 
army of occupation at Corpus Christi. What a relief, 
after two years of inactivity and torpor, to find him- 
self at this post with work at hand ! He marched 
with the army^ to Fort Brown. On May 23, 1846, 
Mexico declared war. 

" In every battle of Gen. Scott's, from Vera Cruz 
to Mexico ; in every battle of Gen. Taylor's, from Palo 
Alto to Monterey," — is Grant's creditable record in the 
Mexican War. He fleshed the sword, which the gov- 
ernment had taught him to wield, when Piingold's 
battery first struck the staggering line of Mexicans 
in that prairie-thicket which gives to the earliest 
action - in the war its name. When, the next day, 
the stricken but undemoralized enemy rallied with 

1 JVIarch 8, 1846. 3 May 8, 1846. 



40 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

re-enforcements on a stronger position, and it became 
apparent, as the sun was declining, that cannon could 
not, as on the previous day, decide the contest, he 
deployed as a skirmisher, with his regimental com- 
rades, towards the natural ditch in which the foe was 
intrenched ; and was on the lead when the gallant 
Fourth leaped into the ravine of palms,^ and cleared 
it of every hostile bayonet. When the Mexicans ral- 
lied ai2;ain, Grant charo-ed with that unwavering; line 
of steel, which finally broke them into fragments, and 
scattered them on the river. He crossed the Rio 
Grande, and occupied Matamoras ~ with Gen. Taylor's 
column, while the haggard and sullen remnant of tlie 
liostile army was creeping slowly southward. 

" Onward ! " ^ is the word ; and, with his eye on the 
cloud-capped and towering line of Sierra Madre, he 
joins the wearisome march to the stronghold of 
Northern Mexico. On the 20th of August, 1846, 
Grant finds himself on that abrupt eminence which 
commands a prospect of Monterey from the east. At 
his feet lies a cultivated valley, tessellated with the 
varied green and yellow of orange and acacia groves, 
and waving fields of corn and sugar-cane, which 
stretch up to the very bastions of the easternmost 
works of defence. Beyond the forts, the sunbeams 
glance on the marble-like stucco of the cathedral and 
dwellings of the city, which seems to be veiled even 
from the profane gaze of the northern barbarians by 
the luxuriant foliage of floAvering tropical trees. 

Behind all, rise heavenward the Saddle and Mitre 

1 May 9, 1846. ^ May 18, 1846. 3 July 20-30, 1846. 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN WAE. 41 

Mountains, with their tremendous peaks, aptly com- 
pared to " giants guarding the lovely bower at their 
feet, and prepared to roll enormous rocks from their 
summits upon the adventurous assailants." We do 
not embrace the entire horizon in our view : we say 
nothing of Independence and Federation Hills, and 
the Bishop's Palace ; for we are concerned in this biog- 
raphy only with that part of the assault in which 
Grant participates. Our business is, chiefly, with that 
nearest fortification which stares us in the face : it 
is formidable enough to a storming party, even if 
Diablo was not behind it. It is named Fort Teneria. 
The morning of the 21st breaks clear and resplend- 
ent ; and Major Mansfield, who is in the front, recon- 
noitring, sends back word that he has discovered a 
point where that foremost fort is assailable. In a 
moment Col. Garland, with two infantry regiments, 
Brao:t2:'s batterv, and the Baltimore battalion, is 
descending the slope, followed by the rapt attention 
and palpitating hearts of their comrades on the hill. 
Before they had reached the point designated by 
Mansfield, the citadel enfilades them with its fire, and 
a masked battery in front showers them with shot 
and shell. Fort Teneria is still silent, but frowns like 
grim death. On they advance, until they can see 
the eyes of the gunners when the fort opens, and 
the assailing column, torn to pieces, is hurled into the 
suburbs of the city, to be massacred piece-meal by 
musketry from walls and house-tops. Meanwhile the 
Fourth Infantry, to which Grant was attached, had been 
ordered to march by the left flank towards the point 
of attack; but, ignorant of the fate of their comrades^ 

4* 



42 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

they moved directly against the fort, when the same 
destructive fire sweeps from the earth two -thirds of 
their number, and scatters the survivors in dismay. 
Fortunately for the success of the day, two companies 
of Col. Garland's discomfited storming-party find shel- 
ter on the roof of a tannery, within musket-range of 
Teneria, and, with the sure aim of the rested rifle, 
pick off, one by one, the Mexican gunners. Under the 
cover of repeated and overwhelming vollejs from this 
"coigne of vantage," the Tennessee and Mississippi 
volunteers rush across an intervening space of a hun- 
dred yards, and, with a deafening war-whoop, pour 
like angry billows up the slope, over the parapet, 
and through the embrasure. The work at the east end 
is over for the day, and the Fourth Infantry bivouac 
in Teneria for the night. I have been thus particu- 
lar in detailing this afiair, because it was Grant's 
first encounter with war "in all its terrors clad ; " and 
because, from his experience there in both of its 
vicissitudes, and from its frightful slaughter, it may 
be said to have terminated his martial novitiate by a 
" baptism of blood." 

Grant discovers at morning reveille, that Fort Di- 
ablo has been evacuated during the night, and is 
now occupied by the Mississippi Volunteers ; and the 
cheering new^s reaches him at breakfast, that Gen. 
Worth, by a succession of impetuous assaults, has car- 
ried every fortified position on the western acclivities. 
The guns of the Bishop's Palace are now turned upon 
the devoted town from the west, and those of Teneria 
and Diablo from the east ; and, simultaneously from 
each of these directions, the riflemen are penetrating 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN ^YAR. 43 

the suburbs, and gradually approaching each other 
and the central plaza. The assailants find every 
street barricaded with mason-work, every wall pierced 
for musketry, and on every second roof a sand-bag 
battery. Crawling from roof to roof, burrowing from 
house to house, literally tunnelling covered ways 
through the solid walls of the dwelling, the sharp- 
shooters, from opposite directions, have arrived within 
four blocks of each other ; and between the two, hud- 
dled around the cathedral, is the Mexican garrison. 
The cathedral is their powder-magazine ; and it is no 
addition to their serenity of mind that Major Monroe 
is dropping into it explosive shells from a mortar bat- 
tery on Federation Hill. The final onslaught on the 
besieged at bay is arrested by a bugle, with a flag 
of truce ; and, on the 24th of September, Ampudia 
capitulates. 

Speedily there comes from Gen. Scott a requisition 
for Worth's and Twiggs's division to join him in the 
grand advance upon the city of Mexico. Grant's 
regiment is included in this demand. He parted from 
his disheartened companions when they were strug- 
gling on towards Buena Vista, there to win im- 
perishable laurels, and went himself to act no con- 
temptible part in achievements which will deserve 
one page at least when a universal history shall be 
written. They have endured more than twenty years 
of criticism ; they have established their reputation 
by comparison and by contrast ; and it may be said 
of them, what cannot be said of any other military 
operations on this continent, that they have not been 
entirely eclipsed by the splendor and magnitude of 
more recent triumphs. 



44 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

To Grant, it was a half-year of enchantment. War 
assumed her most comely guise, her most captivating 
airs, her most bewitching smile, and wove round the 
entranced young warrior all her fascinating spells. It 
is hard to conceive, it is impossible to describe, the ex- 
hilaration with which he participated in that series of 
hard-fought engagements which bore triumphantly the 
flag of the 3^oung repubhc from the shores of the gulf 
to the lake-eucircled metropolis of the ancient Aztecs, 
in the footprints of previous conquerors, whose names 
recalled the palmiest days of the proudest monar- 
chy ; through scenery grand and picturesque beyond 
all example; along the base of volcanoes once crowned 
with fire, now lifting eternal snow far into the azure 
depths of air ; amid the ruins of temples which once 
smoked with human sacrifice ; and along the majestic 
front of colossal pyramids, which carry the mind back 
to a primeval race and an extinct civilization.^ Nor 

1 Gen. Scott, who visited the Pyramid of Cholula, thus describes it : — 
" During this halt, every corps of the army, in succession, made a most interest- 
ing excursion of six miles to the ruins of the ancient city of Cholula, long, in 
point of civilization and art, the Etruria of this continent, and, in respect to 
religion, the Mecca of many of the earliest tribes known to tradition. 

" One grand feature, denoting the ancient grandeur of Cholula, stands but 
little aftccted by the lapse of, perhaps, thousands of years, — a pyramid built of 
alternate layers of brick and clay, some two hundred feet in height, with a square 
basis of more than forty acres, running up to a plateau of seventy yards square. 
There stood, in the time of Cortez, the great pagan temple of the Cholulans, with 
a perpetual blazing fire on its altar, seen in the night many miles around. 

" Coming up with the brigade, marching at case, all intoxicated with the fine 
air and splendid scenery, he (Gen. Scott) was, as usual, received with hearty 
and protracted cheers. The group of ofBcers who surrounded him differed 
widely in their objects of admiration ; some preferring this or that snow-capped 
mountain, others the city, and some the Pyramid of Cholula, that was now 
opening upon the view." — Lieut.-Gen. Witijield Scott^s Autobiography, pp. 455-7. 

" The great Volcan, as Popocatapctl was called, rose to the enormous height 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN WAR. 45 

was it any drawback to his enjojaiient, that, with 
every step of this exciting campaign, he was advan- 
cing in miUtary knowledge and capacity, and also in 
professional reputation and rank. He was favoiably 
noticed for his skill in gunnery, when that cordon of 
earthworks was tightening round Vera Cruz the " In- 
vincible."' He was complimented for his gallantry at 
Churubusco, when the tete de pont was carried by the 
bayonet alone. He won his brevet of first lieutenant 
in those bloody hours when Molino Del Rey succumbed 
to the impetuosity of our soldiery ; and the full grade 
on that day, ever memorable in our annals, when the 
steep and frowning heights of Chapultepec were car- 
ried, and the trembling city below implored the mercy 
of our artillery.^ 

of 17,852 feet above the level of the sea, — more than 2,000 feet above the 
"monarch of mountains," the highest elevation in Europe. During die pres- 
ent century, it has rarely given evidence of its volcanic origin ; and the " hill 
that smokes" has almost forfeited its claim to the appellation. But at the time 
of the Conquest it was frequently in a state of activity, and raged with uncom- 
mon fury while the Spaniards were at Tlascala." — Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, 
pp. 45, 46. 

" On they trudged, however, stopping now and then to quench their thirst at 
some mountain brook, or to gaze at the quenched volcano of Pnpocatapetl, its 
sides begrimed with lava, and its peak soaring above the clouds. - - Scott's Battles 
in Mexico, Harper's ]\fugazine, p. 12. 

Of Cholula, Prescott says, " It was of great antiquity, and was founded by 
the primitive races who overspread the land before the Aztecs." — Prescott's Con- 
quest oj" Mexico, p. 5. 

The Mexican temples — teocallis, "houses of God," as they were called — 
were very numerous. 

" Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourttenth cen- 
tury, about two hundred years before the Conquest." — Prescott's Conquest of 
Mexico, pp. 72-74. 

1 In Gen. Worth's report of operations against Chapultepec, he makes 
acknowledgments to " Lieut. Grant, of the Fourth Infantry." 

In Capt. Brooks's report of the operations of the Second Artillery against 
Chapultepec, the following paragraph occurs : -— 

" I succeeded in reaching the fort with a few men. Here Lieut. U. S. Grant, 



46 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

Scott's campaign in Mexico was to Grant a second 
military school, which rounded off and com^ileted the 
education he had acquired at the first. It was a prac- 
tical illustration, upon a grand scale and with sublime 
accompaniments, of the principles of military art with 
which he had already been imbued. Engineering, 
which he had studied at West Point, teaches, among 
other things, the modes in which walled cities are 
approached and captured. On the 9th of March, 
1847, Grant found himself before one of the two 
walled cities in North America. Vera Cruz is sur- 
rounded by a line of solidly-built bastions and redans, 
with curtains between, and terminating at one ex- 



and a few more men of the Fourth Infantry, found me ; and by a joint move- 
ment, after an obstinate resistance, a strong field-work was carried, and the 
enemy's right was completely turned." 

Major Lee, in his report of operations against the same fortress, mentions 
the same officer in the following strain : — 

" At the first barrier, the enemy was in strong force, which rendered it neces- 
sary to advance with caution. This was done; and, when the head of the bat- 
talion was within short musket-range of the barrier, Lieut. Grant, Fourth In- 
fantry, and Capt. Brooks,- Second Artillery, with a few men of tlieir respective 
regiments, by a handsome movement to the left, turned the right flank of the 
enemy, and the barrier was carried. Lieut. Grant behaved with distinguished 
gallantry on the 13th and 14th." 

Tlie following passage occurs in Col. Garland's report of the same action : — 

"The rear of the enemy had made a stand behind a breastwork, from Avhich 
they were driven by detachments of the Second Artillery under Capt. Brooks, 
and the Fourth Infantry under Lieut. Grant, supported by other regiments of 
the division, after a short, sharp conflict. I recognized the command as it came 
up, mounted a howitzer on the top of a convent, which, under the direction of 
Lieut. Grant, quartermaster of the Fourth Infantry, and Lieut. Lendium, Third 
Artillery, annoyed the enemy considerably. I must not omit to call attention 
to Lieut. Grant, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions under 
my observation." 

"I have again to make acknowledgments to Cols. Garland and Clarke, bri- 
gade commanders, as also to their respective staffs; to ... S Smith, 
Haller, and Grant, Fourth Infantry, especially." — Gen. Worth's Report of Bat- 
fiV of Chapultepec. 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN WAE. 47 

tremity with Fort San Lago, a,ncl at the other with 
Fort Conception. The harbor is commanded by the 
famous fortification of San Juan d'Ulloa, impregnable 
to assault, but which yielded once to a bombardment 
after a resistance which was merely contemptible. 
The siege of Vera Cruz, though of short duration, il- 
lustrated many of the most important practical prin- 
ciples of engineering. The first parallel was drawn at 
a distance of eleven hundred yards, from which a bat- 
tery of three thirty-two-pounders, and as many Paix- 
hans, finally succeeded in demolishing the curtain, and 
shattering the redans and bastions, and destroying half 
the houses on the land side. The bombs of the mortar 
batteries burned up all the combustible houses. The 
flag of truce appeared on the third day ; and negotia- 
tions were opened, which terminated in the surrender 
of Vera Cruz and San Juan d'Ulloa. 

We could not omit this description, because it is 
memorable as the first siege in which Grant was en- 
gaged, — the first siege of that soldier who personally 
supervised the construction of those twelve miles of 
trench and parallel, bristling with eighty-nine batteries; 
that circle within circle of constantly-advancing fire ; 
that ring within ring of artillery and musketry, which, 
day after day, closed in nearer and nearer on wailing 
Vicksburg, until it was slowly strangled by coils which 
it was impotent either to sever or endure, — the first 
siege of a soldier who environed Eichmond with ram- 
parts even more Titan-like and irresistible ; bisecting 
the area of treason by the one triumph, and by the 
other exterminating rebellion, and destroying the 
Confederacy. 



48 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

The first step in the romantic advance was still 
more interesting, both as an exemplification of his 
military studies and of the prescience of his present 
commander. It is one of the few instances on record 
where a g-eneral-in-chief has had such confidence in 
himself and his troops, that he dared to promulge 
in advance the precise plan of an engagement ; while 
its exact conformity in execution to the preliminary 
plan is almost without a parallel. With the tenses 
of the verb changed, the report might be substituted 
for the order, and the order for the report. 

Where the national road crosses the Rio del Plan, 
you instantly rise from the t'lerra caUente into a more 
elevated region, and, after an hour's march, stand at 
the entrance of one of the defiles, so famous in w^ar- 
like story, which Liberty, loving the mountains, gives 
to mountaineers for their defence. Here, on the left, 
rises a ridge, extending the whole length of the pass ; 
and behind it rolls the rapid but shallow river through 
a cauon a hundred feet in depth. Upon its acclivi- 
ties, facing the road and in advantageous positions, 
the Mexicans have planted their heavy batteries, one 
above the other; and the superior commanding all the 
approaches to the inferior. Here, on your right, are 
elongated mountain spurs, basing upon the road their 
slopes, covered with impenetrable chaparral. They for- 
bid any diversion to the right. Still fixrther w^est, and 
in the direct line of your march, stand two conical 
mounts, — Atalaya, masked from the road by one of 
the spurs ; and Cerro Gordo, lifting itself eight hun- 
dred feet above the plain, and presenting to you an 
eastern face, steep, rugged, difficult of access, and 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN WAn. 49 

strengthened, moreover, by two tiers of breastworks 
and abatis. Its summit is crowned by a tower, mount- 
ing nine guns, which sweeps the defile and the road 
beyond it. As if this were not enough to guard the 
pass at the foot of Cerro Gordo, a battery of six guns 
is planted directly on the road. You cannot find, in 
any direction, a half-acre of level earth, where a bat- 
talion can deploy, which is not commanded by artil- 
lery. 

Grant sees in an instant that here is no merely 
engineering question, but a complex problem in the 
art of war, which addresses itself to the highest 
genius of the commander. It needs but a glance at 
his left to show him that no skill and courage can 
turn the enemy's right. To the left of his line alone 
a flanking movement can be aimed : and here on 
his rigl)i are these entangled spurs ; and the re- 
sources of reconnoissance have been tasked in vain 
to find a pathway through them. Shall the army be 
sacrificed in forcing the defile? shall it be decimated 
in storming the forts ? shall the expedition be aban- 
doned ? 

AYhen Scott reaches the ground, his experienced 
eye speedily detects the sole expedient which can 
brush this great obstruction from his path. Let Pil- 
low's brigade seriously threaten, and if practicable 
cany, these batteries of the enemy on the left of the 
road. Let Twiggs's division, before it reaches the de- 
file, w^heel sharp to the right into this forest of chap- 
arral, and cutting a pathway behind those elongated 
ridges, and encircling all the Mexican works, debouch 
beyond them all into the national road. Assail Cerro 



50 LIFE or GENERAL GEAXT. 

Gordo, the key of the whole position, in the rear; 
and at the same time cut off the retreat of the 
enemy to Jalapa. This was Scott's prehminary order 
of battk\, omitting only his directions to the artillery 
and cavalry reserve, to Worth, — to follow and support 
the operations of Twiggs, and the directions for the 
vigorous pursuit of the foe after his intrenchments 
were carried. 

The performance corresponds with the programme, 
except that Twiggs, being annoyed by a party of 
skirmishers in executing his movement, throws off 
to his left a detachment to scatter them, which unex- 
pectedly carries the cone-shaped Atalaya, and, encou- 
raged thereby, scales Cerro Gordo in front, and turns 
to flight one division of Santa Anna's Mexican army 
before Twiggs's right, on the march, has reached the 
Jalapa Road to intercept it. Such was Grant's first 
participation in a flanking movement. There is an- 
other man in this army who will one day recall it. 
Robert E. Lee is serving on Scott's staff as captain 
of engineers. 

"The plan of attack," saj^s Scott in his report, 
"sketched in General Orders, No. 111^ herewith, was 



^ The first division of regulars (Wortli's) will follow the movement against 
the enemy's left at sunrise to-morrow morning. 

As already arranged, Brig.-Gen. Pillow's brigade will march at six o'clock 
to-morrow morning along the route he has carefully reconnoitred, and stand 
ready, as soon as he hears the report of arms on our right, or sooner if circum- 
stances should fovor him, to pierce the enemy's line of batteries at such point 
— the nearer to the river the better — as he may select. Once in the rear of 
that line, he will turn to the right or left, or both, and attack the batteries in 
reverse, or, if abandoned, he will pursue the enemy with vigor until further 
orders. 

Wall's field battery and the cavalry wiH be held in reserve on the national 



EDUCATION, MEXICAN WAR. 51 

finely executed by this gallant army before two 
o'clock, P.M. yesterday. We are quite embarrassed with 
the results of victory, — prisoners of war, heavy ord- 
nance, field batteries, small-arms, and accoutrements. 
About three thousand men laid down their arms, with 
the usual proportion of field and company officers ; be- 
sides five generals, several of them of great distinction, 
— Pinson, Jarrero, La Vega, Noriega, and Obando. 

road, a little out of view and range of the enemy's batteries. They will take 
up that position at nine o'clock in the morning. 

The enemy's batteries being carried or abandoned, all our divisions and 
corps will pursue with vigor. 

This pursuit may be continued many miles, until stopped by darkness or 
fortified positions, towards Jalapa. Consequent!)^, the body of the army will 
not return to this encampment, but be followed to-morrow afternoon or 
early the next morning by the baggage-trains of the several corps. For this 
purpose, the feebler officers and men of each corps will be left to guard its camp 
and effects, and to load up the latter in the wagons of the corps. A commander 
of the present encampment will be designated in the course of this day. 

As soon as it shall be known that the enemy's works have been carried, or 
that the general pursuit has been commenced, one wagon for each regiment 
and battery, and one for the cavalry, will follow the movement, to receive, un- 
der the direction of medical officers, the wounded and disabled, who will be 
brought back to this place for treatment in general hospital. 

The surgeon-general will organize this important service, and designate that 
hospital, as well as the medical officers to be left at it. 

Every man who marches out to attack or pursue the enemy will take the 
usual allowance of ammunition, and subsistence for at least two days. 

General Orders, No. 111. — The enemy's whole line of intrenchments 
and batteries will be attacked in front, and at the same time turned, early in the 
■day to-morrow, probably before ten o'clock, a.m. 

The second (Twiggs's) division of regulars is already advanced within easy 
turning-distance towards the enemy's left. That division has instructions to 
move forward before daylight to-morrow, and take up position across the nation- 
al road in the enemy's rear, so as to cut off a retreat towards Jalapa. It may 
be re-enforced to-day, if unexpectedly attacked in force, by regiments — one 
or two — taken from Sliiclds's brigade of volunteers. If not, the two volunteer 
regiments will march for that purpose at daylight to-morrow morning, under 
Brig.-Gen. Shields, who will report to Brig.-Gen. Twiggs on getting up with 
him, or to the general-in-cliicf if he be in advance. 

The remaining regiment of that volunteer brigade will receive instructions 
in the course of this day. 



52 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

A sixth general, Vasquez, was killed in defending the 
battery tower in the rear of the line of defence ; the 
capture of which gave us those glorious results." 

Worth's division of four thousand men, to which 
Grant's regiment was attached, is immediately pushed 
on to the fortress of Perote, which was captured with- 
out a struggle ; and from thence they quietly march 
upon Puebla, and stack their arms in the Grand Plaza 
of a city of eighty thousand inhabitants. Here, at an 
elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea, which 
tempers the climate to a perpetual summer, in the 
centre of a valley of unrivalled fertility and beauty, 
which annually produces two abundant crops. Grant 
passes the months of July and August in the year 
1847. The landscape is continually enamelled with 
all the cereals and all the grasses of the temperate 
zone. The apple, peach, apricot, and pear trees are 
always in perennial fruitage or blossom. Orizaba 
stands as a gigantic sentinel upon the horizon, and 
the towering peaks of Malinche and Popocatapetl 
guard the outskirts of the valley. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EDUCATION. — MEXICAN WAR. — CERRO GORDO TO MEXICO. 

ON the 7th of August the order is given to ad- 
vance ; and, with a " Cerro-Gordo cheer," the 
troops, overloaded with their arms and knapsacks, 
begin to chmb the Cordilleras, quenching their thirst 
at the same mountain-streams which the invadino; 
Spaniards had drunk two hundred ^^ears before. The 
great features of Nature remain unchanged for ages ; 
and, when the foremost ridge of the Rio Frio is 
reached, the landscape which struck the bewildered 
gaze of Grant was the same which had enchanted 
Cortez and his companions, when, like Moses on Pis- 
gah, they cried out, " It is the promised land !" Well 
might the mind be filled with admiration and awe. 
Ten thousand feet higher than the summit on which 
they stand, "the hill which smokes" seems near enough 
to be touched by hand. " Stretching far away at their 
feet were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and 
cedar ; and beyond, yellow fields of maize, and the 
towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and 
blooming gardens : for flowers, in such demand for 
their religious festivals, were even more abundant in 
this populous valley than in any other part of Ana- 
huac. In the centre of the great basin were beheld 
the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of 

5* 53 



54 LIFE OF GEXEKAL GRANT. 

its surface than at present ; their borders thickly 
studded with towns and hamlets, and in their midst 
— like some Indian empress with her coronal of 
pearls — the fair city of Mexico, with her white 
towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, 
on the bosom of waters, the far-famed ' Venice of the 
Aztecs.' High over all, rose the royal hill of Cha- 
pultepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, 
crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses 
which at this day fling their broad shadows over the 
land. In the distance, beyond the blue w^aters of the 
lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was 
seen a shining speck, the rival capital Tezcuco ; and 
still farther on the dark belt of porphyry, girding the 
valley around like a rich setting which Nature has 
devised for the fairest of her jewels. 

" Such was the beautiful vision which broke upon 
the eyes of the Spaniards. And even now, when so 
sad a change has come over the scene ; when the 
stately forests have been laid low, and the soil, un- 
sheltered from the fierce radiance of a tropical sun, is 
in many cases abandoned to sterility ; when the 
wateus have retired, leaving a broad and ghastly 
margin, white with the incrustation of salts ; while the 
cities and hamlets on their borders have mouldered 
into ruins, — even now that desolation broods over the 
landscape, so indestructible are. the lines of beauty 
which Nature has traced on its features, that no 
traveller, however cold, can gaze on them with any 
other emotions than those of astonishment and rap- 
ture." ' 

lAug. 10, the leading division, Worth's, with which I marched, crossed 



CEEPvO GORDO TO MEXICO. 55 

Descending from this loftiest point of roadway 
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Grant 
encamped with the rest of the army at Chnlco in 
the Valley of Mexico, and advanced the next day to 
San Augustin, where, on the 18th of September, 
1844, Scott concentrated all his troops, and established 
his hospitals, depots, baggage and siege trains. All 
the garrisons, except a small one at Piiebla, had been 
drawn in ; all communication with Vera Crriz and 
home abandoned. "We threw aw\ay the scabbard," 
says Gen. Scott, " and advanced sword in hand." 

It is not the part of this biography to describe in 
detail the wonderful engagements which supplied all 
that was previously wanting of romance and adven- 
ture to crown the interest which will forever attach 
to this enchanting basin. For such description you 
must turn to that page in the history of our country 
which w\as there written in imperishable characters 
by the magnanimity and heroism of her sons. Re- 
jecting every temptation which may beguile me from 
the path, I must concentrate my attention to the 
line of operations in which Grant participated, for the 

the Rio Frio range of mountaiRS, — the highest point in the bed of the road be- 
tween the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Descending the long western slope, a magnificent basin, with, near its centre, 
the object of all our dreams and hopes, toils and dangers, — once the gorgeous 
seat of the Montezumas, now the capital of a great republic, — first broke upon 
our enchanted view. The close-surrounding lakes, sparkling under a bright 
sun, seemed in the distance pendent diamonds. The numerous steeples, of 
great beauty and elevation, with Popocatapetl ten thousand feet higher, appar- 
ently near enough to touch with the hand, filled the mind with religious 'awe. 
Recovering from the sublinie trance, probably not a man in the column failed 
to say to his neighbor or himself, " That splendid city soon shall be ours ! " All 
wore ready to suit the action to the word. — Scout's Autobiography, pp. 466, 
467. 



56 LIFE OF GEXEHAL GEAXT. 

purpose of showing how he was prepared by disci- 
phiie and experience for the great task of sabduing 
the Eebelhon. If it would not divert me too far from 
this special inquiry, it would be interesting to con- 
sider what resources he possessed, CA'en at this period, 
for solving the great strategical question which first 
presented itself to the commander-in-chief, — whether 
to advance upon the capital by the national road ou 
the northern side of the lakes, and storm El Penon ; 
or, turning to their southern border, through this 
immense field of Pedregal (which looks as if it were 
the scene of battle between Jupiter and the giants 
when they tore up mountains by the roots, and threw 
them at each other) ; and then, having forced Valen- 
cia from the fortified camp which lies in this path, 
carry Churubusco, Molino Del Piej-, Chapultepec, and 
the other eastern defences. It is unnecessary to say 
that this was the line of march finally adopted. Both 
routes lay over causeways flanked on right and left 
by water or marsh, and so narrow, that one well- 
managed battery could have cleared them, in ten 
minutes, of the entire force under Scott's connnand. 

When the resolution is adopted to advance b}- 
the southt3rn route, the entrance to the San-Antonio 
Causeway is immediately occupied by Worth's division. 
It consists of two brigades. The Fourth Infantr^^, 
the Second and Third Artillerj-, with Duncan's field- 
battery, constitute the first, or Col. GarlancVs hrlrjadc. 
The Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Regiments of infantrj^, 
with a light battery, constitute the second, or Col. 
Clarke's brigade. I conjure the reader to impress 
upon his mind this organization, to retain in his 



CEEEO GORDO TO MEXICO. 57 

memory the names of the division and the hrigade 
commanders. It is essential in following movements, 
that these officers shall be remembered, as well as 
the numbers of the regiments which compose their 
respective commands. Let me repeat that Grant was 
in the Fourth Infantry, Garland's brigade, Worth's 
division. Clarke was the brigadier of the co-operat- 
ing brigade of the same division. 

The general of division under whom it was Grant's 
good fortune to serve was Scott's right arm during 
the campaign : wherever hard work was to be done, 
or perils encountered, or glory won, Worth was iu 
the van. Garland and Clarke were the riucht and 
left arms of Worth Of Col. Garland, Worth himself 
says, that '• he was conspicuous on many fields of the 
Mexican War ; and by his skill, conduct, and courage 
in the last great combats, greatly added to an already- 
established reputation for patriotism and soldiership." 
In following closely Col. Garland's impeded march to 
the capital, we shall detect the "whereabouts " of 
Grant in the smoke of battle, and shall witness " the 
moving accidents by flood and field, disastrous 
chances, hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly 
breach," through which Grant himself reached the 
"hall of the Montezumas." We know from other 
sources that he was with his regiment in all its 
actions and assaults. He was at this time cjuarter- 
master of the Fourth ; and, unless called to service 
upon the regimental staff, might have remained ^xith 
his baggage-wagons during everj^ engagement. He 
coveted no such exemption, but was always foremost 
in its fighting ranks. 



58 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRAXT. 

We know, then, that on this bright forenoon in 
September, — it is the 20th of the month, — Grant 
was standino: with his brio-ade - comrades in . an 
angle of the San-Antonio Causeway. They propose 
by this route to make an excursion to the city of 
Mexico, and enter it by the San-Antonio Gate. They 
possess some exciting information which it is desir- 
able that the reader shall also learn in order to enter 
into the spirit of their adventure. They know that 
some opposition is to be anticipated to their jaunt. 
They can see, that, half a mile ahead, the villagers 
of San Antonio have thrown impediments across the 
causeway which may prematurely arrest their project. 
They know that Col. Clarke with their co-brigade, 
who designs to accompany them, has already 
diverged into the meadows for the purpose of avoid- 
ing the intended civilities of this hacienda, and 
reaching the road at a point beyond it. They know 
that some three miles ahead, where this causeway 
crosses the Churubusco rivulet, still more formal 
preparations are made for their reception ; that a 
tete de pont has been erected with bastions, connect- 
ing-curtains, wet ditch, every thing in the most ap- 
proved engineering style and finish, even to the 
four guns in embrasure and barbette bearing directly 
upon their narrow path j and that, if the Mexicans 
having them in charge are mischievously disposed, 
quite serious consequences may there ensue. They 
know that a breastwork of some four hundred yards 
front connects this tete de i^ont with the convent 
church of San Pablo in the hamlet of Churubusco ; 
and that, strange to say, a redoubt and abatis 



CERRO GOKDO TO MEXICO. 59 

obstructs the entrance into tlie sacred edifice, which, 
moreover, mounts seven cannon on its consecrated 
walls, crenelled also for musketry. They know, also, 
that Santa Anna, with a following of twenty-seven 
thousand soldiers, has come forth from his palace to 
this interesting locality for the purpose of greeting 
them upon their arrival. They know that beyond the 
river and the bridge some eight thou'^and Mexican re- 
serves are drawn up in' line, awaiting their advent. 
They know that yesterday morning Gen. Twiggs, with 
quite a large retinue, went through the Pedregal, some 
five miles to the west, for the purpose of visiting the 
fortified camp of Gen. Valencia, who, with a concourse 
of friends, has also emerged from the city with hospi- 
table intent. They know that it is the plan of Gen. 
Twiggs's party, after paying their respects to the 
Mexican general, to pursue a circuitous path for the 
purpose of avoiding the parade and ceremonies at 
Churubusco, and to join Garland beyond the river in 
his excursion to the city. 

Grant, with the brigade, is awaiting the signal 
which shall announce that Clarke has reached his 
point of destination. His guns at length are heard. 
Garland's war-dogs, unleashed, rush impetuously upon 
the San-Antonio intrenchments, and drive out the 
enemy in a long straggling column, which Clarke, now 
charo-insT from the meadows on its flank, cuts near 
the centre ; hurling the rear upon the village of Do- 
lores as unworthy of further notice, but uniting with 
Garland in scouro-ino; the severed head to the com- 
patriot embrace of Churubusco. But the Sixth Infan- 
try, which is on the lead, suddenly comes to a halt. 



CO LIFE OF GEXEEAL GRANT. 

Tliey discover the Convent of San Pablo, with its 
formidable defences, on the left of the causeway, the 
tete de pont garnished with heavy guns and crowded 
with troo^DS, the continuous line of infontry between 
the two ; and beyond the river, far as the eyQ can 
reach, stretch away the glittering bayonets of the 
reserves. A tremendous raking volley from the tete 
de i^ont, an enfilading fire from the convent, render 
this exposed highway untenable ; and both brigades 
deploy through the cornfields on their right, to strike 
the- bridge-head on the fiank. 

Meanwhile, the division of Twiggs, having but six 
hours ago annihilated the army of Valencia at Con- 
treras, faithful to its appointment, has pushed on to 
its promised rendezvous here, and is now hammering 
the convent, and the intrenchments which the enemy 
presents on the right. Shields's and Pierce's brigades 
have forded the river, and fiillen on the enemy's re- 
serves in the marshes beyond it. The battle rages at 
three points at once, — on the left, the right, the rear. 
Victory wavers, and it is doubtful upon wdiich banner 
she will perch. Garland's and Clarke's brigades are 
stunned in their onslaught upon the flank of the tete 
de x>ont The veteran Sixth Infantry stagger back? 
decimated, from their furious leap lipon its front. 
Duncan's battery is obliged to mask itself before the 
heavier metal of its guns. Taylor's battery, operating 
with Twiggs upon the right, crippled in men and 
horses, is driven from its position by the expert 
gunnery of San Pablo ; while the assailing infimtry 
there are terribly galled by the sharpshooters of its 
tower and roof; and Shields, on the meadows, is out- 
flanked by the Mexican cavalry. 



CEEEO GOEDO TO MEXICO. 61 

One daring exploit redeems the fortunes of the day, 
— Lieut. Longstreet, bearing the colors of the Eighth 
Infantry, and leading the regiment which he inspirits 
both by exhortation and example, leaps with it into 
the dry-ditch of the tete de i^ont, escalades the curtain 
without ladder or scaling-implement, and, with the cold 
steel alone, clears its bastions of defenders, and drives 
them over the bridge upon their reserve. Quicker than 
thought, he turns its captured guns upon San Pablo, 
which is still slaughtering the columns of Twiggs 
upon the right. Relieved from the pressure of the 
same metal, Lieut.-Col. Duncan gallops forward with 
his splendid battery. He opens, at a distance of two 
hundred yards, upon the walls around the convent; 
and seizing the prolongation of its principal face, in 
the space of five minutes, by a fire of astonishing 
rapidity, drives the artillery-men from the guns in 
that quarter, and the infantry from their intrench- 
ments ; and then turns his battery upon the convent- 
tower. While its garrison are shocked and half demor- 
alized by this overwhelming attack of Duncan from 
the left, the stormers upon the right capture the 
nearest salient which confronts them in that direction ; 
the light artillery advance rapidly within effective 
range ; San Pablo slackens fire ; and a dozen white 
flags appear just as Capt. Alexander of the Third 
Infantry is entering it, sword in hand. The whole 
fortified position of Churubusco is taken. 

When the tete de pont^^hioh. had so long withstood 
Worth's division, gives way, like pent-up floods, with 
resistless power, it sweeps across the bridge, down the 
causeway, over the ditch, overflowing the fugitives 



62 LIFE OF GENERAL GEAXT. 

from the works and the unbroken battalions of the foe 
upon the meadows. Shields, who is sorely beset by the 
reserves, feels their iron grasp relax, their stout ranks 
waver before the inflowing tide of victory, until they 
are borne away in dismay. Garland, wdth deafening- 
shout ; Aj'ers, with a captured Mexican gun ; Hoff- 
man, with a remnant of the gallant Sixth ; Harney, 
with his draojoons, — while p'orino; the retreatino; Mex- 
icans, intersect the now exalting lines of Shields. 
Palmettoes, New-Yorkers, New-Englanders of the 
Ninth, survivors of that desperate charge on Par- 
tales, join the tiuiiultuous throng which pursues the 
vanquished army of Santa Anna until halted by the 
discharge of batteries at the gate of his capital. 

Headquarters are established at Tacubaya, the 
army is cantoned there and in the neighboring vil- 
lages ; and then ensues for a fortnight that ill-advised 
armistice and futile attempt of Commissioner Trist to 
conquer a peace from Santa Anna in the field of 
diplomacy. 

It is yet dark on the morning of the 8th of Sep- 
tember, when Grant, in regimental battle-line, con- 
fronts the last fortified position upon which depends 
the fate of the enemy's* capital. Directly in his front, 
the solid walls of Molino del Key, five hundred feet 
in length, rise like a precipice, save that drowsy can- 
dles twinkle through its windows, intimating what is 
in store when from them shall stare the muzzles of the 
rifles. On its right the Casa Mata, or arsenal, presents 
a forbidding mass of heavy masonry, pierced for mus- 
ketry, and enveloped by a quadrangular field-work. 
Between the two is the station of the enemy's field- 



CEREO GOr.DO TO MEXICO. 63 

battery and of the infantry cleployeil on either side 
for its protection. On its left, wrapped in the solemn 
shade of gigantic cypresses, towers from the sum- 
mit of a porphyritic rock the royal castle of Cha- 
pul tepee. 

We may, for the purposes of this narrative, erase 
Chapultepec from our topographical survey ; for the 
skilful tactical arrangements of the division-com- 
mander have isolated it from this morning's opera- 
tions. Casa Mata is assigned to Grant's comrades of 
the Second Brigade as their exclusive prey. Gar- 
laud, under whom he serves, is aimed at the Molino 
alone, which, by the masking of Chapultepec, has 
become the extreme left of the enemy; and his 
business is threefold — to sustain \Yrio'ht's stormino; 
party, to protect Huger's battery of twenty-four- 
pounders, to cut off supports from the castle. 

The co-operating forces for the single movement 
in which Grant is personally concerned are all now 
in position. Garland is on the plain, staring directly 
into the eyes of the Molino ; and on the Tacubaya 
ridge, within five hundred yards of it, linger, with his 
matches lighted; Wright, with his forlorn hope in 
leash; Cadwallader and Kirby Smith, as reserves 
against mishaps, — all with hearts kindled, muscles 
braced, teeth set, awaiting the opening of an exciting 
drama. Morn. has hardly purpled the east, before the. 
heavy missiles of Huger's battering train pound the 
walls and penetrate the roof of the Molino ; and, be- 
fore the nearest mountain brings back the echo of his 
first gun, lights flash, bugles sound, shouts run, and 
arms clash along the whole line of the enemy's de- 



64 LIFE OF GENERAL GIIAXT. 

fences, as the roused garrison begird themselves for 
action. At the first indication that the mason-^york 
is yielding, Wright, with his half-legion of stormers, 
advances at double-quick down the Tacubaya slope ; 
and unchecked by the ditch which environs the struc- 
ture, unshaken by the sheet of flame which flashes 
from the light battery, by the musketry which show- 
ers upon them, by the canister and grape which 
enfilade every approach, in spite of its supports, 
captures the enemy's field-battery between the Casa 
Mata and the Molino. But as they are trailing the 
guns upon the retreating mass, and before they are 
discharged, the garrison, perceiving that it has been 
dispossessed by a handful of men, and re-assured by 
the active support of its collateral lines, rallies in 
force, and temporarily discomfits and drives the vic- 
tors. While thej^are bayoneting the wounded Amer- 
icans left upon the field, Cadwallader's and Kirby 
Smith's reserves are on the assassins. 

Garland now rapidly moves forward with Drum's 
section of artillery, and carries an apparently impreg- 
nable position under the guns of Chapultepec ; and, 
stimulated by victory, wheels np his glittering line of 
bayonets to the support of the storming party. The 
Fourth joins the mtlancje of all arms which have closed 
in upon the Molino, firing into its apertures, climbing 
to its roof, and striving, with the butts of muskets and 
extemporized battering-rams, to burst its doors. Ma- 
jor Buchanan of the Fourth, with Alden and Grant, 
are forcing the southern gate. Ayres and Anderson, 
with some dashing acrobats, vault through an embra- 
sure at the north-west angle. A hand-to-hand fight 



CEEEO GOEDO TO MEXICO. 65 

ensues, from room to room, from floor to floor, from 
roof to roof In the main apartment of the building, 
a stalwart Mexican gathers his straggling comrades 
into a line which threatens to clear the Molino of 
every assailant ; but the southern gate has yielded, 
Buchanan and Grant appear with a serried file of the 
Fourth Infantry, and the Molino is finally captured 
beyond peradventure. It is thus that Grant wins 
his first Ijrevet. Before noon, tlie Casa Mata is blown 
up, the Mohno dismantled, and the fatigued survivors 
of this desperate contest reposing on their laurels at 
headquarters. 

The next three days are devoted to a close and 
daring reconnoissance of the southern avenues to the 
city by the scientific staff of Scott. It was evidently 
his original intention to make the garitas in this quar- 
ter his ultimate p6int of attack ; and his preliminary 
movements in accord with this purpose disclosed it to 
the enemy. They have, accordingly, fortified these 
approaches with superior strength. In a personal 
survey, he saw reason to change his direction ; but, 
in order that the preconceived impression of Santa 
Anna may remain undisturbed, he leaves Col. Riley's 
brigade to threaten and manoeuvre here, but hastens 
himself to organize the real advance upon the west 
and south-west causeways. 

The first step in the inverted plan is to carry that 
natural and isolated mound, cf great elevation, 
strongly defended at its base, on its heights, and ac- 
clivities, and all surmounted by the Castle of Chapul- 
tepec. Heavy batteries, within easy range, are es- 
tablished. Pillow's and Quitman's division, re-enforced 



66 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

by storming parties from Worth and Twiggs, are held 
under cover for assault. Bombardment and cannon- 
ade are commenced on the morning of the 12th, and 
continued until nightfall, when it is clearly perceived 
that our fire is effectual; for a majority of the garri- 
son are disposed to remain outside of the work, under 
the protection of the hill, leaving within the castle 
and on the summit the minimum only which is neces- 
sary to work the guns. The preconcerted signal for 
the assault is given by nine o'clock on the morning 
of the 13th; and the two assailing columns move for- 
ward with an enthusiasm and alacrity which betokens 
success. 

Grant was not permitted to participate in this glo- 
rious achievement ; and in accordance with the rule 
I have adopted, — to confine this narrative to the 
operations in which he was persoimlly engaged, — it 
would find no record here, if its universal popularity 
did not exempt it from the restraints and limitations 
of the rule. The heroism of the exploit even ani- 
mates the sluggish periods of official despatches ; and 
Scott describes it in language which emulates the 
precision of Napier and the fire of Macaulay. A para- 
graph worthy of this commendation in such a com- 
munication, even if it were entirely irrelevant to my 
theme, would deserve insertion here as a curiosity of 
literature ; and I yield to its deserts with the more 
avidity, because it will relieve the reader, for a mo- 
ment, from the same imperfections in my own style 
which I am censuring in that of others. In justice, 
too, to the brave men who marshalled the enterprise, 
their names should be spread on every chronicle of 



CEEEO GORDO TO MEXICO. 67 

the. Mexican War in the authoritative words of the 
commander-in-chief. 

Pillow's approach^ lies through that open grove of 
stately c^^presses, gray with the moss of ages (now 
filled with sharpshooters), through that tangled 
wilderness of wild shrub which marks the site of 
Montezuma's garden, until he emerges upon the 
cleared and levelled area at the foot of the rocky 
acclivity. Quitman's approach- is along the Tacubaya 

1 Major-Gen. Pillow's approach on the west side lay through an open 
grove, filled with sharpshooters, who were speedily dislodged ; when, being up 
with the front of the attack, and emerging into open space at the foot of a rocky 
acclivity, that gallant leader was struck down by an agonizing wound. The 
immediate command devolved on Brig.-Gen. Cadwallader in the absence of the 
senior brigadier (Pierce) of the same division, — an invalid since the events of 
Aug. 19. On a previous call of Pillow, Worth had just sent him a re-enforce- 
ment, — Col. Clarke's brigade. — Gen. Scott's Despatch. 

- Major-Gen. Quitman, nobly supported by Brig.-Gens. Shields and Smith 
(P. P.), his other officers and men, was up with the part assigned him. Si- 
multaneously with the movement on the west, he had gallantly approached the 
south-east of the same works, over a causeway, with cuts and batteries, and de- 
fended by an army strongly posted outside> to the east of the works. Those 
formidable obstacles Quitman had to face, with but little shelter for his troops, or 
space for manojuvring. Deep ditches, flanking the causeway, made it difficult 
to cross on either side into the adjoining meadows ; and these again were inter- 
sected by other ditches. Smith and his brigade had been early thrown out to 
make a sweep to the right in order to present a front against the enemy's line 
(outside), and to turn two intervening batteries near the foot of Chapultepec. 
This movement was also intended to support Quitman's storming parties, both 
on the causeway. The first of these, furnished by TAviggs's division, was com- 
manded in succession by Cape. Casey, Second Infantry, and Capt. Paul, Sev- 
enth Infantry, after Casey had been severely wounded ; and the second, origi- 
nally under the gallant Major Twiggs, marine corps, killed ; and then Capt. 
Miller, Second Pennsylvania Volunteers. The storming party, now commanded 
by Capt. Paul, seconded by Capt. Roberts of the rifles, Lieut. Stewart, and oth- 
ers of the same regiment ( Smith's brigade), can-ied the two batteries in the road, 
took some guns, with many prisoners, and drove the enemy posted behind in 
support. The New- York and South-Carolina Volunteers (Shields's brigade) 
and the Second Pennsylvania Volunteers, all on the left of Quitman's line, 
together with portions of his storming parties, crossed the meadows in front, 
under a heavy fire, and entered the outer enclosure of Chapultepec just in time 
to join in the final assault from the west. — Gen. Scott's Despatch. 



6S LIFE OF GENERAL GKANT. 

Road flanked with deep ditchesj in the face of cross- 
cuts, obstructions, and batteries, defended by an 
army of men. After a succession of desperate 
struggles, which upon any other day would have 
been gazetted as a pitched battle, he enters the 
outer enclosure of Chapultepec in time to co-operate 
with Pillow in the final assault of the west. 

" The broken acclivity was still to be ascended, and 
a strong redoubt midway to be carried, before reach- 
ing the castle on the heights. The advance of our 
brave men, led by brave officers, though necessarily 
slow, was unwavering, over rocks, chasms, and mines, 
and under the hottest fire of cannon and musketry. 
The redoubt now yielded to resistless valor, and the 
shouts that followed announced to the castle the fate 
that impended. The enemy were steadily driven 
from shelter to shelter. The retreat allowed not 
time to fire a single mine, without the certainty 
of blowing up friend and foe. Those who at a dis- 
tance attempted to apply matches to the long trains 
were shot down by our men. There was death be- 
low as well as above ground. At length the ditch 
and wall of the main work were reached ; the scaling- 
ladders were brought up and planted by the storm- 
ing parties. Some of the daring spirits first in the 
assault were cast down, killed or wounded : but a 
lodgement was soon made ; streams of heroes followed ; 
all opposition was overcome ; and several of our regi- 
mental colors flung out from the upper walls, amidst 
long-continued shouts and cheers, w^hich sent dismay 
into the capital. No scene could have been more 
animating or glorious."^ 

1 Gen. Scott's Despatch. ">• 



CEREO GOEDO TO MEXICO. 69 

While these grand events are transpiring, Worth's 
division, stripped of its first brigade by Pillow's requisi- 
tion, is awaiting at the Molino its predestined occupa- 
tion. The order at length arrives ; and Garland leads 
cautiously around the northern base of that consecrat- 
ed hill under the sombre shade of its primeval grove, 
cheered by the stars and stripes^ which now flaunt 
defiance from turrets reared by Spanish viceroys, 
aimed at the entrance of the Causeway San Cosme, 
and bound for the Alameda by the north-western gate. 
Grant is with him, and wins an additional grade on this 
immortal afternoon. When they reach the embank- 
ment, they perceive that it is no place for organized 
operations : it is narrow ; the ubiquitous canals are 
on either side ; an aqueduct runs along the centre, 
laid on arches of solid masonry ; it is intersected by 
numerous dikes and cross-roads and by frowning bar- 
ricades, behind wdiicli the sullen enemy lies in wait. 
The brigade is broken into detachments : a part are 
thrown out, right and left, into the marsh, advancing 
behind every natural obstacle and cover ; a part rush 
stealthily from arch to arch. Garland is now ap- 

1 There arc some friendships formed in life which no difference of political 
opinion can alienate. As a slight tribute to one of this endurinfj nature, I wish 
to settle, in favor of a personal friend, a controversy in which he is too magnani- 
mous to participate, by an authority which should forever prevent its renewal. 
Who hauled down the Mexicart flag at Chapultepec ? Major-Gen. Pillow, in 
hio report of the battle of Chapultepec, says, " The gallant Col. Ransom of 
the Ninth Infantry fell dead from a shot in the forehead while at the head of his 
command, waving his sword, and leading his splendid regiment up the heights 
to the summit of Chapultepec. I had myself been a witness to his heroic con- 
duct until a moment before, when I was cut down by his side. My heart bleeds 
wich anguish at the loss of so gallant an officer. The command of his regiment 
devolved upon Major Sej-.mour, who faltered not, but with his command scale! 
the parapet, entered the citadel sword in hand, and himself struck the Mexican 
flag from the walls." — Message and Doc. for 1847, p. 40G. 



70 LIFE OF GENEEAI. GRANT. 

proacliing tlie first breastwork. Behind it is the 
enemj'^ in force, with his centre resting upon it and 
his wings expanded. " When the head of the bat- 
talion was in short musket-range of this barrier," 
writes Major Lee, commander of the Fourth, " Lieut. 
Grant and Capt. Brooks, wdth a few men of their re- 
spective regiments, by a handsome movement to the 
left, turned the right of the enemy, and the barrier 
w^as carried." The soldiers display their habitual 
firmness and audacity. Worth directs the move- 
ment with tactical exactness, — massing his scattered 
detachments upon the enemy in front, while carefully 
guarding his own flank ; throwing off artillery and 
infantry into the marsh upon the left to turn an 
abatis, into the marsh upon the right to clear his own 
and Quitman's front, who is pursuing a divergent 
march to tlie capital. Worth pushes his troops 
through a withering fire. They capture a second 
battery ; they silence and dismantle a third, which 
enfilades their path. They have reached Campo 
Santo, where the causeway wheels into the inhabited 
streets of the city. 

" We here came in front of another battery," writes 
Gen. Worth in his Report, " beyond which, distant 
some two hundred and fifty yards, and sustaining it, 
was the last defence, or the garita of San Cosme. 
The approach to these two defences was in a right 
line ; and the whole space was literally swept by 
grape, canister, and shells, from a heavy gun and 
howitzer ; added to which, severe fires of musketry 
were delivered from the toj)s of the adjacent houses 
and churches. It hence became necessary to vary 



CEREO GOEDO TO MEXICO. 71 

our mode of operations. Garland's brigade was thrown 
to the right, within and masked by the aqueduct, 
and instructed to dislodge the enemy from the build- 
ino-s in his front, and endeavor to reach and turn the 
left of the garita ; taking advantage of such cover as 
might offer to enable him to effect these objects. 
Clarke's brigade was, at the same time, ordered to 
take the buildings on the left of the road, and, by the 
use of bars and picks, burrow through from house to 
house, and in like manner carry the right of the ga- 
rita. While these orders were being executed, a 
mountain-howitzer was placed on the top of a com- 
mandins: buildinQ- on the left, and another on the 
Church of San Cosme on the right ; both of which 
opened with admirable effect. The work of the troops 
was tedious, and necessarily slow, but was greatly 
favored by the fire of the howitzers." ^ The howitzer 
on San Cosme Convent is served by a steady aftn, and 
aimed by a sure eye, that will yet be of service to the 
country in direr extremities than this. "I recog- 
nized the command as it came up," writes Col. Gar- 
land in his report of the action, " mounted a howitzer 
on the top of a convent, which, under the direction 
of Lieut. Grant, quartermaster of the Fourth Infantry, 
and Lieut. Lendrum, Third Artillery, annoyed the 
enemy considerably. I must not omit to call atten- 
tion to Lieut. Grant, who acquitted himself most nobly 
upon several occasions under my observation." 

The orders which Worth recites in the paragraph I 
have transcribed from his Eeport, virtually abrogates 

1 Gen. Worth's Report of Battle of Chapultepec. — Messages and Documents, 
p. 329. 



72 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAKT. 

tactics for the remainder of the day, and transforms 
the movement into a hand-to-hand fi<?ht. While Grant 
IS showering the roofs with his howitzer, Garland is 
bush-fighting on one side of the street, and Clarke 
burrowing on the other. And now ensues a scene 
which beggars description. The military vocabulary, 
with its technical terms, and the stereotyped phrases 
and imagery of military narrative, are powerless here. 
The sun is near the horizon. The war in the after- 
noon, with scope and verge enough, had, like a freshet, 
overspread the wide area of the meadows. It is now 
" bottled up " in a narrow gorge between the paral- 
lel walls of the street, and the gate- works at its 
termination. The pent-up fury devours all before it ; 
rages, howls, lashes the sides of the enclosure, as if a 
whole menagerie of rabid animals had been driven 
into a single pen. By patient toil, ingenuity, courage 
unparalleled ; by Clarke on the left, with his model 
cannoneers transmogrified into sappers and gymnasts ; 
by Garland on the right, with his splendid infantry 
reduced for the occasion into bushwhackers ; by Grant 
and Lendrum razeed into common gunners; by cav- 
alrymen dismounted, voltigeurs, engineers (for all 
arms are in this grand melee), — inch by inch, foot by 
foot, we crowd the Mexican gunners from the battery 
between us and the gateway. Duncan's artillery is 
rushed into the abandoned work with a velocity 
which drives it muzzle to muzzle against the enemy's 
cannon. " Once more to the breach ! " And by ma- 
noeuvres which were never dreamed of on parade ; by 
tactics which would astound the schools and dismay 
the martinet ; by vaulting from house-top to house- 



CEERO GOEDO TO MEXICO. 73 

top, squirming from window to window, worming 
from wall to wall; by soldiers riglit-face, left-face, 
back-face, front-face, obliqued ; by soldiers erect, on 
their knees, " belly- whapper ; " by volleys from can- 
non in the street, howitzers on the convent ; by fusi- 
lades from all rifles, all muskets, all revolvers, from 
all skirmishers, squads, detachments, single men ; 
by bullets from every loop-hole, cover, " coigne of 
vantage," — the riddled cjarita sullenly yields. The 
welkin rings with a shout which carries consternation 
to ten thousand Mexican homes, as the pent-up war 
went roaring thi*ough the pass. The city is ours! 

The supports, which have been constantly report- 
ing during the afternoon to Gen. Worth, and which 
could not be advantageously used in this consummate 
coup de main, are now ordered up ; and to the in- 
spiriting music of their band, with measured tread, 
well-trimmed ranks, and martial bearing, file through 
the disgarnished gateway, in strange contrast with 
the begrimed and motley crew gathered round the 
stronghold which they had just overwhelmed. By 
the dexterity of officers, the tangled skein is soon 
unravelled, and these broken battalions once more 
set in soldierly array. 

McDonald, in his furious charge upon the enemy's 
centre at Wagram, scarcely encountered more perils, 
or met them with more fortitude, than Quitman's 
division in its obstructed march over the Tacubaya 
Causeway. Aware as Gen. Scott was of the strong 
defences at the Belen Gate, and that it was, moreover, 
commanded by the citadel beyond it, he merely in- 
tended that Quitman should denionstrate seriously 



LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 



ag-ainst these defences, in order to favor the decided 
attack of Worth. But, borne on by his own gallantry 
and by the impetuosity of his troops, Quitman over- 
powered the Belen by two o'clock in the afternoon, 
and effected a lodgement within it. He was preparing 
to storm the citadel, when the city council, at four 
o'clock in the morning, waited upon the commanding 
general with a proposition which resulted in the 
capitulation of Mexico upon terms imposed by Gen. 
Scott. After dismissing the deputation, he communi- 
cated orders both to Quitman and to Worth to feel 
their way cautiously toward the centre of the city, 
and to occupy respectively the Grand Plaza and the 
Alameda. Worth occupies the beautiful park as- 
siirned to him, within three blocks of the national 
palace ; there to encounter the assassin-like fire of 
the convicts, which the fugitive government had 
released from the carcds} and distributed into every 
advantageous position for the massacre of our troops, 
be it church, convent, or even hospital. Heroic Gar- 
land is struck down, wounded by the first fire. The 
battering-train is turned upon all structures which 
harbor these desperadoes ; and the stealthy assassina- 
tion which a vindictive chief had bequeathed to his 
conquerors resulted only in the punishment of the 
innocent of his own countrymen, that these guilty 
conspirators might be reached. 

Grant was a spectator of that splendid pageant on 
the 14th of September, the culminating felicity of 
Scott's long military career, — his ceremonious en- 

i Worth, ill his Report, says that there were thirty thousand thus liberated. 



CEEEO GOnDO TO MEXICO. 75 

trance, with all the honors, mto the city of Mexico. 
He sees groups of discharged felons, wearing their 
tattered mantles with the air of Spanish grandees, 
grasping their stilettos, and frowning vengeance upon 
the hated Yankees, who stand between them and uni- 
versal pillage. He sees the flags floating from the 
ambassadorial palaces, and groups of elegantly-attired 
women behind them, peering through their folds upon 
the spectacle beneath ; and in the balconies the 
gaudy costume of senor and seSorita, gazing with 
varied emotion upon the begrimed and bronzed sol- 
diery before whose resistless valor has sunk every 
emblem of their independence and sovereignty. He 
hears the measured tramp of armed columns, the dis- 
tant roll of artillery wheels, the clash of arms upon 
the pavement, the sounding hoofs of horses on the 
street, the inspiriting burst of " Hail to the Chief," as 
Worth's veteran warriors, drawn up in line of battle 
upon the Alameda, salute the passing cavalcade of 
the general-in-chief On the Grand Plaza, where, in 
front of the magnificent cathedral, Quitman's division 
is presenting arms. Grant beholds, in the full uniform 
of his rank, escorted by a squadron of dragoons, and 
half hid by the flashing trappings of his staff, the tow- 
ering form of that chieftain, who, after storming the 
strongholds of Mexico and annihilating her armies, 
alights at the steps of her national palace, conscious 
desert ennobling his lineaments, and the premonitions 
of an established fame animating his bosom. 



CHAPTER V. 

EDUCATION. — FRONTIER SERVICE.— CIVIL LIFE. 
[1848-1861.] 

I TRACED Grant through the course of studies at 
West Point, to show how they discipUned his mind, 
and educated him in the scientific element of his pro- 
fession. I have followed him up to his graduation in 
the Mexican War, not to adorn this narrative with 
his personal adventures, but to exhibit in what man- 
ner the principles imbibed at the first were illustrated 
and enforced by the practical teachings of his second 
military college. But his service here was, in addi- 
tional respects, an invaluable preparation for the over- 
whelming responsibilities of the position to which he 
was destined. Tactics is that branch of the art of 
war which inculcates the methods of handling arms 
and of manoeuvring companies, brigades, divisions, and 
army corps. So far as it applies to the first two of 
these army-organizations, it may be acquired in the 
drill-room or on the parade-ground ; but the heavier 
bodies, of which they are the units, are seldom con- 
centrated ; and therefore the soldier destined to lead 
armies can never learn the more advanced and com- 

76 



FEOXTIEE SEEVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 77 

plex lessons of tactics, except when war is either im- 
minent or flagrrant. 

But rising infinitely higher even than tactics, as 
the qualification for the chief of mighty armies, is the 
science of command itself, which teaches where armies 
shall be stationed, engagements won, and campaigns 
conducted. You may con the battles and operations 
of the most celebrated warriors in biographies ; you 
may learn by heart their war-maxims, as you may 
try to master chess without a competitor, or anatomy 
and surgery without an operating-room : but a cen- 
tury of such fancy drill in these arts will never pro- 
duce a Morphy, a Mott, or a Napoleon. I have heard 
Gen. Grant affirm, that, when he was first intrusted 
with high military authority, he knew nothing of 
strategy except what he had learned by a critical ob- 
servation, upon the spot, of the modes and expedients 
by which the genius of Scott counterbalanced the in- 
trenched positions and the numerical superiority of 
the Mexicans. It is a source of profound gratification 
that such a model campaign, in all respects, was pre- 
sented for his study and consideration. It has been 
justly said of it, that it was conducted with fewer 
strategical mistakes, with less sacrifice of men, with 
less devastation in proportion to its victories, and 
with more fidelity to the established laws and usages 
of war, than that of any invading general upon record. 

Entering into and a part of this science of com- 
mand is that genius — born, not made — by which 
the great masters of the art magnetize every soldier 
in the ranks. There is something more in war than 
what Napoleon's maxim asserts, — " the art of being 



78 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the strongest." The warrior works with instruments 
that have souls within them. A general may be fami- 
liar with all that the books teach of war ; he may be 
expert in every minutia of tactics ; he may be accom- 
plished in the theoretical and mechanical parts of 
strategy ; he may have learned all of it which can 
be taught by study, and also by experience : yet if he 
lack but one thing — this personal ascendency — down 
to the dust will his banner sink before that antagonist 
whose sole superiority is the possession of this exalted 
attribute. It is this power, which, in the dire extrem- 
ity, makes one man ten, and a thousand put ten thou- 
sand to flight. It was this which Frederick exhibited 
when his twice ten thousand veterans, inspired by 
his own genius, vanquished at Rosbach four times ten 
thousand French and Austrians ; the father and the 
king exhorting his grenadiers as they passed into the 
battle-cloud, " You yourselves know that there have 
been no watchings, no fatigues, no sufferings, no dan- 
gers, which I have not steadily shared with you up to 
this very hour ; and you now see me ready to die 
with you and for you. All that I ask of you, com- 
rades, is that you return me zeal for zeal and love for 
love." It was the power of the four consummate 
warriors of the race, — 

" The science of commandinf^ ; 
The godlike art of moulding, welding, fettering, banding 
The minds of millions till they move like one." 

It cannot be reasonably doubted that Scott po.s- 
sessed to a considerable degree this ins^iiring quality 
of eminent generalship ; and it is fortunate, that, for so 
long a period, Grant dwelt so near the source of in- 



FEONTIEE SEEVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 79 

spiration that he may have caught the flame ; so close 
to the magnet that he may have imbibed a portion 
of its mysterious power. It is of more importance 
that he should be invested with it, because it is a 
characteristic as serviceable to the statesman as to 
the warrior. Of Lord Chatham's renowned adminis- 
tration of England's affairs during a decided crisis in 
her history, Macaulay says, " The success of our arms 
was, perhaps, owing less to the skill of his dispositions 
than to the national resources and the national spirit. 
But that the national spirit rose to the emergency, 
that the national resources were contributed with un- 
examjDled cheerfulneae, — this was undoubtedly his 
work. The ardor of his soul had set the whole king- 
dom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged 
the cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sail- 
or who boarded the French ships among the rocks 
of Britain." 

After his war with the gods, Prometheus was bound 
to a rock in Caucasus, and an immense vulture sent 
daily to pounce upon his liver, which grew as fast as 
it was devoured. His punishment seems to be typi- 
cal of the tedium which preys upon the mind of the 
soldier when he passes suddenly from such scenes as I 
have described in the last chapter, — from Churubusco 
and Chapultepec -, from " the exulting sense, the pulse's 
maddening play," — to the torpid perceptions and 
sluggish arterial circulation of a hibernating bear at 
Fort Desolation. 

We never should have heard of Grant after his 
second imprisonment in one of these dungeons of 
Despair, but for an incident the most fortunate of 



80 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

his varied career. He was allowed by his military 
superiors to select an associate to share his exile from 
miUtary activity. Hi-s choice fell upon one who de- 
served all his confidence and love. He carried with 
him to his monotonous duties cheerfulness and conso- 
lation in the person of a bride. He was married in 
August, 1848, to Miss Julia T. Dent, the daughter of 
Frederick Dent, a merchant of St. Louis; and the 
sister of Frederick T. Dent, a classmate at West Point, 
who has since risen to the rank of brevet brigadier- 
general, and was the aide of Grant in several engage- 
ments, and his assistant secretary of war when he 
was the head, ad interim, of that department. She has 
proved herself the kindest and most affectionate of 
wives ; sharing with unabated courage and constancy 
the trials and disappointments of his early manhood ; 
fully exemplifying the truth of Lord Bacon's apho- 
rism, that "virtue, like precious odors, is most fra- 
grant when incensed or crushed." Prosperity and re- 
nown have since brought to him a cup crowned with 
blessings ; but, among them all, there is no choicer 
felicity than that the wife of his youth, in the bloom 
of her years, is permitted to share them. Fame and 
position have also entailed their peculiar trials and 
anxieties; but they are always met with fortitude 
and composure when cheered and sustained by the 
companion who has stood beside him in so many 
emergencies, and in both extremities of fortune. 

I now enter upon a period of Grant's life upon mil- 
itary posts, of six years' duration. It was, of course, 
barren of that incident and adventure which consti- 
tute the charm of the most delightful pages of biogra- 



FRONTIER SEEVICJE, CIVIL LITE. 81 

phy ; but it was fruitful in influence upon his life and 
character. It was the period of repose following the 
turmoil of war, when, after the agitation of a voyage, 
the good wine lies on its must, — the period of medita- 
tion which originates the proverb, " Speech is silvern ; 
silence is golden." It was in these hours of reflection 
that he assimilated with his own mind the books that 
he had read, and the thoughts of others which he had 
imbibed ; " fought his battles o'er again," with more 
accurate comprehension now of the skill of Scott's 
dispositions and the niarvels of his strategy. Nor 
did the tedium and ennui of which I have spoken in 
such strong language reach its nadir at once, but de- 
scended gradually through the monotony of post-ser- 
vice in the populated part of our immense territorial 
area, until it became unbearable, when it finally ex- 
iled him from the society of his family, and furiously 
assailed him in — 

" The continnons woods, 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
Save his own dashings." ^ 

Washington, at the age of twenty-six, terminated 
his novitiate, in that French and Indian War which 
trained him for the Eevolution, at Fort Du Quesne. 
At the age of twenty-six, and at the conclusion of 
Grant's novitiate in the war which schooled him for 
the War of the Rebellion, he was stationed at Detroit. 
Du Quesne was one of that chain of military posts, 
stretching from the Gulf of St Lawrence to New 
Orleans, with which the house of Bourbon attempted 

1 Grant was stationed at Vancouver on the " Oregon" just before he re 
signed his commission. 
6 



82 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

to environ the English Colonies of North America : 
Detroit was another. This city, charming in its 
natural situation, and, by the beauty of its streets 
and the elegance of its mansions, attractive as a resi- 
dence, is still more captivating for its society, refined, 
cultivated, and intellectual, which, descending as it 
has from the earliest times, is in some measure due to 
its origin from the most polished nation in the world. 
Grant's hurried and rugged road from his youth 
up had prevented him from turning aside into the 
pleasant gardens and by-paths of life ; from cultivat- 
ing the arts de sociSte, or mingling much in social 
enjoyments. The balls and parties of Detroit in the 
winter of 1848-9 delightfully relieved the dull routine 
of a quartermaster's duty. The new tie which he 
had recently formed, in addition to rendering his 
own quarters pleasant and inviting, drew him out of 
himself, from the mess-room and his cigar, to the 
pleasant and agreeable circles in the city. Mrs. 
Grant was herself fond of social pleasures and amuse- 
ments ; and they soon became far from insupportable 
to her husband. It is not true, as is generally sup- 
posed, that in private life he wraps himself up in 
reticence and reserve. It is only when pressed to 
divulge prospective military designs, pumped by 
adroit politicians to indorse party platforms, pestered 
by those who worship " gab " to play the role of 
stump-orator on every appropriate and inappropriate 
occasion, that it becomes as inconvenient and impos- 
sible for him to speak as it was for Sir Mungo Mala- 
growther to hear when his withers were wrung by 
some disagreeable innuendo. In the society of friends, 



FRONTIER SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 83 

and even strangers worthy of his civility, you will 
find him abundantly posted upon the current themes 
of conversation, and sufficiently communicative upon 
events in his own history which are proper subjects 
of narrative. He is more voluble than either of his 
neighbors who preside respectively over the naval 
and war departments. He is both fluent in manner 
and agreeable in the matter upon which he consents 
to speak ; and his vocabulary is copious and even rich. 
He never hesitates for a word, but talks with the ease 
and fluency of one, who, charged with ideas, is borne 
on by the sincerity and earnestness of his convictions. 
He speaks upon all subjects with which he ought to 
be familiar, as from a full mind ; and impresses you 
with the conviction that he is in the habit of arran- 
ging his ideas, and of reflecting upon affairs under 
his official direction. You never rise from a conver- 
sation with him without being convinced that he is 
fertile in resources, and possesses a ready and reten- 
tive memory. I have never met with a bureau offi- 
cer in Washington more affable upon business-matters 
brought under his official notice than Gen. Grant. 
I assert this of Grant from my own knowledge of the 
man, and as the result I have reached after frequent 
interviews with him, during which I have heard him 
describe the whole course of his most important cam- 
paigns, his most memorable achievements, and paint 
in graphic outline such scenes as the capitulation 
of Vicksburg and the surrender of Lee. I was a 
member of the Committee on Military Affairs during 
the Thirty-ninth Congress, and to me was referred as 
sub-committee the bill creating the grade of general ; 



84 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

and it was made a part of my deputed duty to con- 
sult him upon some parts of his military operations 
which were severely criticised by some of my associ- 
ates. I was honored by him with frequent and pro- 
longed audiences at his own headquarters. I have 
been frequently authorized by the same committee to 
consult him upon other questions which we had in 
charge, and respecting which it was proper that we 
should be advised by the general in command of the 
army. His views, clear and precise, were always ex- 
pressed forthwith without previous premeditation. I 
once chaperoned into his presence a party of my con- 
stituents who had come to Washington with the im- 
pression that Gen. Grant never used his tongue 
except to give password or countersign. After the 
solemn ceremony of introduction, the visitors gravely 
seated themselves as if before the marble image of 
the commander-in-chief; and I drew the general out 
upon some subject for the purpose of astounding 
them : and he gave a shock to their preconceived 
ideas from which they have not yet recovered. I am 
pleased to find that this opinion, which I have formed 
from personal observation, is confirmed by a personal 
friend of Gen. Grant, whose acquaintance with him 
was of longer duration and more intimate than any 
of which I can presume to boast. Gen. McPherson 
was a citizen of the same State ; was a distinguished 
division-commander under him in the Vicksburg Cam- 
paign ; and was struck down in battle near Atlanta, 
Ga., lamented by every loyal countryman. On one 
occasion he said to a friend" To know and appreciate 



FEONTIEE SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 85 

Gen. Grant fully, one ought to be a member of his 
military family. Though possessing a remarkable 
reticence as far as military operations are concerned, 
he is frank and affable, converses well, and has a 
peculiarly retentive memory. When not oppressed 
with the cares of his position, he is very fond of talk- 
ing, and telling anecdotes." Let it not, therefore, be 
supposed that he appeared in the fashionable circles 
of Detroit a dumb, vacant, unapproachable guest 
distrait He is master of the situation everywhere. 
He finds none but peers at any man's table, and has 
no occasion to shrink the ordeal of any society. He 
is one of those rapid, sensible, and enjoyable talkers 
whom you would never neglect if you were giving 
one of those dignified conversaziones, of the olden 
time where sense was the rule, and frivolity the 
exception ; when, in the parlors of Washington and 
in the library at Monticello, conversation was the "re- 
creation of the judgment, the jubilee of the reason." 
It is not my intention to indicate that Grant aspires 
to any brilliancy of talk, or attempts to indulge in 
flights of pleasantry or " corruscations of wit and pun 
and pith." No : his conversation is unpretending, 
straightforward, grave, earnest, and always to the 
point. Nor do I mean to convey the idea that he is 
garrulous : I wish merely to asseverate that he talks 
enough, and talks well. 

"But he is no orator;" neither was Franklin, 
Wellington, Jefferson, nor our first deliverer from dis- 
cord, our first mediator between conflicting States, — 
George Washington. Fortunately for us Washington 
was not. Angry passions were to be harmonized, the 



86 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

councils of colonial assemblies moderated, and con- 
flicting sections united on the basis of general utility. 
Skill as an orator would have degraded him into a 
partisan, the fires of rhetoric would have inflamed 
the composure of his judgment, and the arts of 
harangue entangled the deductions of reason. And 
the victor of Waterloo as well as the successful pilot 
of England's civil afiliirs in a stormy time, the leader 
of her cabinet in the House of Lords, rarely con- 
descended to utter more than a word in response to 
the most elaborate diatribe of the opposition. When 
a proposition was introduced by some carpet knight 
to take the colors away from a certain Indian regi- 
ment for alleged misbehavior, Wellington demolished 
it by a sentence, — " They went into action a thousand 
men, and came out seventy." I have also read that 
the great Hebrew lawgiver and the deliverer of 
God's chosen people was " of slow speech, and of a 
slow tongue." 

The particidar duties which Grant performed in 
his military capacity were those of regimental quar- 
termaster. There was but one company of the 
Fourth in Detroit Barracks ; and the aggregate of 
the command was only seventy-one men. The re- 
maining companies were at various points around the 
lake and up the straits ; and as the quartermaster's 
stores of the entire regiment were under his manage- 
ment, and he was responsible for them all to the 
government, these cares involved the necessity of 
frequent visits along the entire line from Sackett's 
Harbor to Mackinaw. The duties of his office were 
sufficiently onerous and inexpressibly irksome from 



FRONTIER SERVICE, CIVIL LIEE. 87 

their monotony, and multiplicity of detail ; demanding 
an amount of returns, duplicate and triplicate, which 
would try the patience and exactness of the oldest 
accountant in the " circumlocution office." He was 
buyer and seller of these supplies, and required to 
be sharp in his estimates, good at a bargain, exact in 
his requisitions, honest to the government, just to 
the contractor, methodical in his accounts, and ac- 
curate in his vouchers. This was his commercial 
college, where he acquired the same business habits 
and training which Washington early learned in dis- 
charging the duties of a surveyor. This employ- 
ment was, doubtless, dull and trying to the aspirations 
of a man conscious that there was more in him than 
a mere huckster's clerk ; but it is one of the striking 
characteristics of Grant, that he can adapt himself to 
any circumstances, and not be driven from the faith- 
ful performance of duties which happen to be dis- 
ao-reeable and distasteful. And althousrh such vulo:ar 
merits as honesty, accuracy, method, and habits of 
business, may not command the homage of the mere 
hero-worshipper, may not receive the applause of the 
" pinks of American aristocracy," they are held in 
deserved esteem by the great majority of his country- 
men, in spite of the presumption raised against this 
conclusion, by the character of the individuals to 
whom they habitually commit the administration of 
their public affairs. It also affords consolatory evi- 
dence, that the general at the head of the army, 
has mastered the details of the most complicated 
bureau under him, and is himself furnished with 
practical sagacity to detect irregularities and fraud 



88 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT, 

in the department most exposed to their insinuating 
approach. His painstaking and submissive discharge 
of these humble duties, will not be unacceptable to 
those who still entertain the fossilized opinion, that 
a soldier should learn how to obey before he is in- 
trusted with command. In my own judgment, the 
fidelity with which he mastered them, and tlie ex- 
perience and discipline, which he acquired as a quar- 
termaster, lodged solid buttresses in his character 
of more substantial worth, than all the glitter and 
the show with which the most dazzling cavalry-charge 
on record might have invested it. 

Grant can never cast his eye upon the happy circle 
which now surrounds his fireside ; he can never feel 
the pressure of young hands upon his knee, the warm 
arms of youth encircling his neck, the kiss of fresh 
lips upon his cheek, or see the "hostages he has given 
to fortune," now approaching their maturity, wearing 
the softened features of both father and mother, faith- 
ful to parental teaching and example, and deserving 
unqualified confidence and love, — without touching 
recollections of his sojourn at these garrisons upon 
the lake ; for here his two eldest children were born. 
The nature of a childless man is but half developed ; 
and Grant found in his new relation slumbering in- 
stincts aroused into such authoritative sway, that, 
more than ever before, he dragged a lengthened chain 
the farther he departed from home-attractions. Just 
at the p'eriod when newly-awakened conjugal and 
parental affections were beginning to inthrall him by 
their potent spell, he was suddenl^'^ called upon to 
smother these pure flames, to sever all domestic ties, 



FP.ONTIER SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 89 

and to degrade himself again to the ranks of "single 
blessedness." 

Oregon is now attracting emigration from the 
States ; and the trail to Astoria lies through a country 
roamed over by the Nez Perces, Blackfoot, and Snake 
Indians; and frequent collisions are occurring between 
these untamed savages and emigrant famili<)s. The 
regiment of mounted riflemen which had hitherto 
garrisoned the posts upon the Columbia, had been 
withdrawn to guard the greater influx of settlers into 
California, from similar attacks from the tribes in that 
locality; and early in 1852, the Fourth Infantry was 
ordered to the Pacific coast. The first station of 
Grant was at Benicia, where I find him in the fall of 
1852. This is our depot of ordnance and quarter- 
masters' stores in the Pacific Department ; and he 
is engaged here for a few weeks in making requisi- 
tions, and shipping supplies, when he is ordered to 
Fort Vancouver in Oregon. 

Grant departs with his regiment to this forlorn spot, 
isolated from civilization on the East by an interven- 
ing wilderness more than two thousand miles in 
breath, and from civilization on the "West by a coast- 
range of sombre mountains, which shuts it off even 
— save by one avenue — from the great highway of 
nations. Vancouver is eighty miles from the sea, 
enveloped in the melancholy shade of primitive for- 
ests. When Grant reached it, he found it still retained 
as one of the central seats of traffic and distribu- 
tion, by the Hudson's-Bay Company, which, as every- 
body knows, is one of those gigantic monopolies 
which were freely granted by Charles the Second to 



90 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

his "favorites. Its charter gave it the exclusive right 
to trade with the Indians around that great northern 
gulf. Step by step has its jurisdiction marched to 
the southward, extending these same engrossing 
privileges over all British North America. During 
the era of conflicting claims between the United 
States and Great Britain upon Oregon, it had pushed 
these pretensions into that territory, Avove over it a 
network of chief and subordinate establishments, and 
now exercised unlimited control over the nomadic 
Indians whom the Fourth Infantry had been de- 
spatched to quell. The station of the company, in 
the centre of the clearing, wore all the aspects of a 
military post. An imposing stockade encloses an 
area of about seven acres, with mounted bastions at 
two of its angles ; within are the governor's residence, 
two small buildings for clerks, and a range of 
dwellinirs for families ; without is another store- 
house, under lease to our government; and a few 
hundred yards farther to the east, rising from a plain 
upon the very edge of immemorial woods, are the log- 
houses known as the Columbia Barracks ; and within 
an arrow's flight of our flag-staff, is a group of hovels, 
occupied by Indians, servants, and Kanackas. Four 
companies of the Fourth are here, with Grant still 
quartermaster : one company is at Fort Dallas, higher 
up the Columbia ; and the remainder are so distribut- 
ed as to guard and keep open communication between 
Oregon and California, with assistant quartermasters 
for their respective stations. 

At this desolate station. Grant vegetated for one 
year, Cervantes never sent Don Quixote on an 



FEONTIEE SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 91 

adventure more fantastic, than the one which the 
Secretary of War had ordered four companies of an 
infantry regiment to achieve. They must guard the 
trail of emigrants through Oregon : the whole army 
of the United States could not effectually do it. 
They must chastise Indian raiders upon the route : 
winged soldiers, with pinions like a condor to buffet 
mountain-blasts, might attempt it with some hope 
of success ; but it is utterly beyond the capacity of 
bipeds moving along the earth. When a report 
reaches the garrison that the Indians are at a parti- 
cular spot, you put your finger upon them, and they 
are not there. Before a company is rallied, the war- 
party vanishes, and can be captured as easily as the 
winds which were with them, at the same hour, upon 
the same occasion. The sole service of troops at 
Vancouver is as a moral support to the emigrants, 
and a terror to the wild foe. Even the alarms, which 
during the first six months temporarily animate 
the garrison, are soon checked by the adroitness of 
Lieut.-Col. Bonneville in command, who establishes 
intimate relations with the servants of the Hudson- 
Bay Company, and, through the instrumentality of 
its widely-scattered agencies, succeeds in pacify in o- 
the tribes. By common sense anointed with civilities, 
a fire in the mountains is subdued which some mili- 
tary Dogberry, clothed in a little brief authority, 
would have blown into a conflagration, and expended 
millions in an abortive attempt to extinguish. 

The second half-year opens with the purpose ac- 
complished for which the troops were sent. There is 
no In dian raider upon the trail, no war-party in the 



92 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

mountains, no war-cloud in the horizon. The emi- 
grant train winds along the desolate track to Oregon 
City, without ambuscade or assault. There is no 
call upon the garrison, except to the drill and to the 
dress-parade : " nothing to do " assails it like a 
plague. To Grant's active mind it was inexpressibly 
irksome. With the exception of quarterly and an- 
nual returns, his office is a sinecure ; for supplies are 
all sent by steamer. Amusements fliil to divert him. 
Snorting mustangs haunt the plain, bounding beneath 
the rider as if each muscle were a separate prancer, 
and the entire horse the one " of Ukraine breed." 
The man born on horseback scorns to bestride them. 
Gano-s of Kanackas, in fantastic attire, mounted on 
these wild coursers, career and caracole, advance, 
retreat, wind circle within circle, as they represent 
mimic battles and hippodromes, before the barrack- 
door ; but they fail to enliven the dull eye of the 
spectator. An elk of twelve tines, dashing through 
the underbrush, hardly tempts him to the chase. 
The salmon — gamiest of fish — leaps the cascades 
of the Columbia, on its way to the spawning-shoal, 
in the stupendous defiles of the mountains. The 
deep pool below fiiirly whirls and glistens with the 
arrested silver-backs, which dart at a fly in mid air, 
with an eagerness of spring that would have crazed 
Sir Humphrey Davy, and held him for days absorbed 
in wild enchantment. Grant throws his line with as 
much listlessness as if he were bobbing for tadpoles 
in a tan-vat. Men who have not mind enough to 
revolt {igainst the want of appropriate employment 
disbelieve in ennui; men without conscience dis- 



FRONTIER SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 93 

believe in remorse : but both are real calamities. 
While thus tormented with " nothing to clo," letters 
from home drew him in that direction, as attraction 
draws a planet to the sun. The maladie du pays, 
which the home-guard can afford to despise because 
the cure is always at his command, is no trifle in 
armies, or to soldiers fastened upon jemote and soli- 
tary posts. The medical staff know it as nostalgia, 
and it has a place upon their blanks with pneumonia, 
dysentery, and other chronic diseases of the camp ; 
and it seldom fails to appear in their regular morn- 
ing reports. The " Ranz de vaches," carolled by 
the peasants at home while milking the cows, is 
prohibited from being sung in European armies by 
positive order. Grant's commission as captain now 
reaches him after he has been a year at Vancouver ; 
and he is forthwith ordered to Humboldt Bay in Cali- 
fornia, where his company is now stationed. The 
Indians had been active in Humboldt County ; and 
the same kind of alarms which for a season relieved 
the inactivity of Vancouver had furnished the com- 
pany at Humboldt Bay with busy idleness ; but 
the quiet of an uninhabited island is not more serene 
than that of Humboldt Bay when Grant reached 
it. He is still drawn eastward by the attractions of 
home, and by the duty which a father owes to his 
children. At a period when his country was in per- 
fect repose, when there was no call for army service, 
when the special mission upon which he was exiled 
into the wilderness had been fully performed, and 
there was nothing to resist the paramount claim 
of wife and children upon his protection and nurture, 



94 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

ho resigned his commission in the army, to take effect 
July 31, 1854 ; and, having obtained a leave of 
absence, joined his family at St. Louis. 

I now enter upon seven years, during which Grant 
"was farmer and collector at St. Louis, and leather-deal- 
er at Galena. In a period of profound national peace, 
he discards his epaulets, that he may enjoy domestic 
life. He throws up his captain's pay, with the certain 
knowledge that he must earn a livelihood for himself 
and family by the labor of his hands and the sweat of 
his brow : after all, as the Spanish proverb hath it, 
" the shirt is nearer than the coat." The choice and the 
sacrifice equally impress the thoughtful mind, while 
this new life-discipline produces fruit in the character 
which is not to be despised. He makes himself a 
good husband and a good father, and therefore be- 
comes a good citizen. He works, that he may never 
bend " the pliant hinges of the knee " to power or 
riches. Let not proud ambition mock this homelj^ joy 
bought by useful toil ! Labor is twice blessed which 
duty inspires ; and, as old George Herbert says, " The 
man who sweeps the church makes it and himself to 
be clean." The nation is made up of men whose daily 
life is daily toil ; and no one represents its tone, or is 
fit to govern it, who has not learned by bitter trial 
that " wealth is best known by want." Brave souls 
alone can endure this ordeal : the feeble would die from 
inanition ; the bright would corrode with rust ; the im- 
petuous slide into crime ; the fanciful fret themselves 
to death in chasing the chimeras of an impracticable 
imagination : but the fort esprit endures and waits. 
Grant's military training is now complete -, and, to me, 



FRONTIER SERVICE, CIVIL LIFE. 95 

Grant cajoling his wife, dandling his babie&. working 
with his hands, earning his bread, driving a team into 
St. Louis mounted on his cart and selling a load of wood ; 
Grant collecting debts ; Grant in the tannery handling 
leather, and haulino^ raw hides from the festerino; vat. 
— is Grant loving with the lowliest, serving with the 
humblest, learning the lesson, mastering the complete 
role of comrade-citizens ; it is Grant in the common 
school of civilians, with them ripening and maturing 
for thv3 practical tasks of American life ; it is Grant 
in the ranks, waiting the call to action, biding the sum- 
mons to fame. Farmer Grant, collector Grant, tanner 
Grant, are as interesting as Gen. Grant, How many of 
the illustrious of the earth have endured the same disci- 
pline ! how many have failed to be illustrious because 
they have shrunk from bearing this cross ! At the age 
of thirty-six. Grant was a working husbandman on a 
Missouri farm. At the age of thirty-six, Cromwell was 
a farmer at St. Ives, cultivating his fields, multiplying 
his flocks and herds. At the age of thirty-six, Wash- 
ington was a planter, raising tobacco, and copying his 
accounts with mercantile neatness and precision. At 
thirty-six, Peter the Great was working with his own 
hands, as a common shipwright, in the dockyards of 
Amsterdam. Franklin was not a less deliberate and 
cautious statesman because at thirty-six he had been 
a patient type-setter. Nor was Sherman a worse coun- 
sellor in evil times for having, at the same age, used 
the awl and the wax-end. How many have emerged 
from the humblest positions to the foremost ranks of 
our citizenship ! " Our bare-footed ploughboys rise to 
ride the Steed of State, and wield the rod of repub- 



96 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAISTT. 

lican empire. Our printing-press sends forth its 
Franklin ; our shoemaker's bench, its Roger Sherman ; 
our blacksmith's forge, its Gen. Greene ; our rustic 
inn, its Gen. Putnam ; our clockmaker's stool, its John 
Fitch; our little grocery-shop, its Patrick Henry; 
the rude habitation of a peasant noble, in the midst 
of a forest, upon a frontier of civilization, its Daniel 
Webster ; the shanty of a humble Irish emigrant amid 
the wilds of the Waxhaws, its President Andrew 
Jackson ; a lowly cot upon the ^ slashes of the Virginia 
Hanover,' its Henry Clay ; our weaver's loom, its Presi- 
dent Fillmore ; our machinist's block, its self-taught rep- 
i-esentative ^ of the industrious masses, to be pitted at 
last against ' one of the brightest gems of American 
aristocracy,' ^ and to win the gavel and the mace of 
the speakership in the Capitol of our great republic." ^ 
And I may add, that, from the log-cabin of a Kentucky 
backwoodsman, Abraham Lincoln reaches the chair 
of president, to reflect more renown than he could in- 
herit from the office, by subsequently ascending that 
dais in the temple of the world's great men, which 
only belongs to deliverers of nations and martyrs to 
liberty, and to the reserved seat upon it, which from 
the beginning had awaited the coming of the eman- 
cipator of a race. 

1 N. P. Banks. 

2 Aiken of South Carolina, 

8 I cannot resist the inclination to borrow an answer to my question from a 
friend eloquent, now, alas! no more, — the Hon. Isaac W. Stuart, — who, like 
the Cumean sibyl, left his inspired leaves to be scattered by the winds. 



CHAPTER VI. 

■WHA; did he actually do in the civil war? — he ADMiNIS. 
TERS THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH-EASTERN MISSOURI. 

I HAVE hitherto attempted to answer the three 
questions propounded in the opening paragraph 
of this biograph}'-, which respect the birth, childhood, 
education, and the preparatory mihtary disciphne and 
experience, of Grant. I now approach the fourth, 
the weightiest of them all, — what did he actually do 
in this civil war? 

In answ^ering this question, it will not be a primary 
object with me to dwell minutely upon the exciting 
details, — the brilliant charge, the volleyed fire, the in- 
flexible resistance, which decided the fortune of many 
a hardly-contested day. Such delineation would 
prominently illustrate the heroism of the soldiery, 
rather than the ability of the commander. I am writ- 
ing a life, not a history ; and my limits restrict me to 
my special function. My governing purpose will be 
to indicate the degree of his responsibility, when, in 
subordinate position, he was carrying out or aiding 
the campaigns or movements planned by his supe- 
riors ; to canvass the quality of the expedients which 
he adopted in the field to execute the conceptions of 
Fremont, Halleck, and the Secretary of War in the 

7 97 



98 LIFE OP GEXEEAL GRANT. 

stud}'. I shall attempt to analyze liis sj'stem of war. 
In describing battles, I shall, as heretofore, direct my 
attention more to the tactical and strategical problems 
involved in them, than to their fire and fury, their 
thunder and blood. 

When Sir Arthur Wellesley was put in command 
of an expeditionary force designed to co-operate with 
the Portuo-uese in their strufirufle for national sove- 
reignty, a friend urged him not to accept an inferior 
command after having marshalled great armies in the 
East; intimating to him that he would be superseded 
by superior officers when he reached the theatre of 
action. Sir Arthur replied in a noble spirit, " I have, 
as we say in India, eaten of the king's salt ; and I will 
serve his Majesty in whatever situation he may be 
pleased to place me, be it supreme or inferior." When 
the news of the bombardment of Sumter, disclosing a 
conspiracy to dissever our nationality, reached the 
leather-store of Jesse R. Grant & Co., at Galena, 111., 
one of the partners, Ulysses S. Grant by name, clos- 
ing his book, laying down his pen, and stepping be- 
fore the counter, said, " I was educated at the expense 
of m}' country ; and I now intend to repay her." He 
had, seven years before, flung a military career and 
martial aspirations to the wind ; he had worked with 
his hands on a farm, and assisted the firm to accumu- 
late a fortune in the leather-trade ; he had moderated 
his ambition to his circumstances, subordinated his 
wants to his means ; he had sedulouvsly avoided party 
fetters and entanglements; he had voted but once in 
a presidential election ; he had never sought the ac- 
quaintance of political demi-gods; the comrades he 



I 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 99 

had left at Vancouver were his only friends ; and he 
was now living, with his wife and four children, in a 
cottage on a picturesque hill of Galena, walking to 
the leather-store, and back to his own house, three or 
four times a day ; saying, as he picked his broken way, 
"If I am ever mayor of Galena, I will mend this 
pavement." What is there in the mere glory of war 
that can lure him from retirement ? 

On the 13th of April, 1861, he heard the news of 
the fall of Sumter. On the 14th, he began enrolling 
recruits; on the 19th, he was drilling his volunteers 
in the streets ; on the 23d, he marched with them to 
Springfield, the capital of Illinois. When he reached 
this place, he wrote a letter to the adjutant-general 
of the State, rehearsing his antecedents, and offering 
his skill and experience in arms to the governor, '' in 
whatever situation he may be pleased to place me." 
Having received no reply to this communication, he 
presented himself in person to Gov. Yates, and solicited 
military employment. I am happy here to have that 
distinguished statesman take up the thread of the 
narrative : — 

" In presenting himself to me, he made no reference 
to any merits, but simply said he had been the re.cip- 
ient of a military education at West Point ; and, now 
that the country was assailed, he thought it his duty 
to offer his services ; and that he would esteem it a 
privilege to be assigned to any position where he 
could be useful. I cannot now claim to myself the 
credit of having discerned in him the promise of 
great achievements, or the qualities ' which minister 
to the making of great names,' more than in many 



100 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

others who proposed to enter the mihtary service. 
His appearance at first sight is not striking. I}e had 
no grand airs, no imposing appearance ; and, I confess, 
it could not he said he was a form — 

" ' Where every god did seem to set his seal 
To give the world assurance of a man.' 

He w^as plain, very plain ; hut still something — 
perhaps his plain, straightforward modesty and ear- 
nestness — induced me to assign him a desk in the 
executive office. In a short time, I found him, to he 
an invaluable assistant in my office and in that of 
the adjutant-general. He was soon after assigned to 
the command of the six camps of organization qnd 
instruction which I had established in the State. 

"Early in June, 1861,1 telegraphed him at Cov- 
ington, Ky. (where he had gone on a brief visit 
to his father), tendering him the colonelcy of the 
Twenty-first Regiment of Illinois Infontry, which he 
promptly accepted; and on the 15th of June he as- 
sumed the command. The regiment had become 
much demoralized from lack of discipline, and conten- 
tion in regard to promotions. On this account, Col. 
Grant, being under marching orders, declined railroad 
transportation, and, for the sake of discipline, marched 
them on foot toward the scene of operations in Mis- 
souri ; and in a short time he had his regiment under 
perfect control." 

Upon reaching this destination, he reported to the 
brigadier in command, and was ordered to the town 
of Mexico, some forty miles to the north of the 
Missouri River, where he reduced his volunteers to 



"WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 101 

shape, and taught them the elementary lessons of 
battalion-drill. Mexico was in what was then called 
the Western Department of the Army, under the 
authority of Major-Gen. Fremont, whose extensive 

. command embraced the State of Illinois and all of 
the States and Territories west of the Mississippi 
River and east of the Rocky Mountains. 

In spite of Grant's limited acquaintance with 
political leaders, his qualihcations for military position 
had reached the ears of Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, 
who, for more than twelve years, had represented 
the Galena district in Congress, but to w^hora Grant 
at this time was personally unkno^vll ; and upon his 
recommendation, with the full approval of the col- 
leagues whom he consulted. Grant was commissioned 
by President Lincoln brigadier-general of volunteers. 
His commission was to bear date from May, 1861 ; 
and the first intimation or knowledge which Grant 
received of it v^as through the daily newspapers. 
As colonel of the Twentj^-first Illinois, Grant had 
been transferred from Mexico to Ironton and sub- 

* sequently to Jefferson City, with no other military 
care, thus far, than to drill and discipline his own 
regiment, and to watch the machinations of the Mis- 
souri rebels and partisan gatherings, armed and un- 
armed, in complicity with treason. 

On the' 1st of September, 1861, under orders 
from Gen. Fremont, he assumed the command of the 
District of South-east Missouri, with headquarters at 
Cairo, where the Ohio debouches into the Missis- 
sippi. Here his personal responsihility for military 
operations begins. 



102 Lir*E OF GENERAL GEANT. 

Let the reader now take his map in hand, and 
trace out the geographical boundaries of " the dis- 
trict," as I describe thera, and mark with his eye some 
of the topographical featm-es and prominent points 
which I shall indicate. 

The district embraces not only the part of Mis- 
souri from which it takes name, but Southern Il- 
linois, and the parts of Kentucky and Tennessee 
of which the reljcls shall hereafter be dispossessed. 
The topographical features which I wish to be noted 
are, that the Mississippi runs tlu'ough it ; and that it 
embraces the junction of the Ohio with the Missis- 
sippi, and the conjunction of the Tennessee and the 
Cumberland icith the Ohio. The points I would 
have the reader notice are, that Paducah, on the 
Ohio, lies directly at the mouth of the Tennessee ; 
that Columbus, on the eastern bank of the Missis- 
sippi, is one northern terminus of the Ohio and 
Mobile Railroad ; that JIickma7i, on the same bank, 
by means of a branch road, is another; that Belmont 
is on the western bank of the Mississippi, directly 
opposite to Columbus ; that Island Number Ten lies 
farther down the Father of Rivers, and controls its 
channel. 

I must also say one word of the pohtical status 
of ' the district.' Illinois is loyal. Missouri is torn 
between two hostile factions, convulsed by fraternal 
strife and the supremacy of the loyal sentiment is far 
from being a fact established. Tennessee is domineered 
l.)y rebel proclivities ; and Kentucky, while professing 
to be in the Union, is advocating neutrality so decid- 
edly, and is so imbued with rebel sympathy, that, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 103 

in contemplation of cautious strategy, she must be 
regarded as an armed neutral, awaiting the turn of 
tide against us to become an open enemy. The im- 
portant posts Pad ucah, Columbus, Hickman, are all 
within the State of Kentucky. 

Behold, now, Grant at Cairo, in command, with what 
I have delineated of his district photographed on his 
working brain ! Behold him ! — West-Point educa- 
tion, war-experience in Mexico, patriotic ardor, force, 
impetus, fire, all melted and fused by long meditation 
into one bolt! Behold him foreseeing effects yet 
unborn and in the womb of their causes ! Behold 
him — 

" Lord of himself, encumbered by no creed " 

of the non-coercionist, the Fabianist, the political 
weather-watcher; yearning to do something which 
shall crush in this district, at least, the new-spawned 
viper. Remember, too, that such a man, surcharged 
with convictions, earnestness, sincerity, is held tightly 
in leash, like a stag-hound of noble blood, by an 
over-cautious and pragmatical major-general. It is 
known that the rebel general, Polk, encouraged by 
Kentucky neutrality, is even now menacing with a 
large force the ]Joints d'apioui on the north-western 
borders of the district. " What shall be done ?" asks 
Grant of himself " What shall he do ? " I ask of 
you : " seize Paducah : it commands both the Ten- 
nessee and the Ohio." 

On the 2d of September, Grant arrived at Cairo ; 
on the 5th, he heard of Polk's demonstration, and 
forthwith telegraphed the fact to the Kentucky 



104 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

legislature, and to his commanding general for in- 
structions ; saying to the latter, "I am getting ready 
to start for Paducah; will start at six and a half 
o'clock : " and, later in the afternoon, " I am now ready 
for Paducah, should not telegram arrive preventing 
the movement."^ He receives no reply. At early 
dawn on the morning of the Gth of Se^Dteraber, as 
the rebel general, Tilghman, was drilling recruits in 
camp at Paducah, he sees the steamer "Mound City" 
covered with blue-coats, the stars and stripes at the 
gaff, looming out of the fog which had settled on 
the Ohio. He abdicates immediately, and hurries 
off with his volunteers by railroad to the south. 
Gen. Grant marches a detachment ashore, takes pos- 
session of the rebel munitions of war, and proclaims, 
among other things, "I am here to defend you 
against the enemy, to assist the authority and 
sovereignty of your government. / have nothing 
to do loith opinions, and shall deal only with armed 
rebellion, and its aiders and abettors. You can 
pursue your usual avocations without fear. The 
strong arm of the government is here to protect 
its friends and punish its enemies. Whenever it is 
manifest that you are able to defend yourselves, 
and maintain the authority of the government, 
and protect the rights of loyal citizens, I shall with- 
<lraw tlie forces under my command."- Gen. Grant 
leaves a garrison at Paducah, and by twelve 
o'clock is on liis return to Cairo, where he finds 
permisision from Fremont " to move on Paducah if 

» Badenu's Military History of Grant, pp. 11, 12. 
♦ Rebellion Kocord, iii. p. 18. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 105 

he feels strong enough." Having thus, self moved, 
saved this important point and the free navigation 
of the Ohio, a reward of merit forthwith follows : 
Fremont sends Gen. Smith into " the district " to take 
command of Paducah, with orders "to report di- 
rectly to the major-genera] ; " and rebukes Grant for 
communicating with the Kentucky legislature. In 
addition to the miUtary fruits of this impromptu and 
self-advised movement, the political results are not 
to be despised ; for it instantly silences the neutral 
minstrelsy in Kentucky, and encourages the loyal 
party there in self-assertion and decision. I cannot 
pass from it without noting, that, whatever else may 
be lacking in that plain and reticent man who is 
stationed at Cairo in command of this district, he 
has a keen eye, a hand rather prompt in action, and 
strategical germs in his brain which are somewhat 
promising. 

But in our survey of Grant's district, next to 
Paducah, the eye rests on Columbus. Shall the ene- 
my here bar the Mississippi, menace every position 
of ours, and hold the terminus of a railroad which 
passes through the semi-neutral States into the Gulf 
States, intersecting every communication from here to 
Mobile Bay ? " No," says Grant. When first ordered 
to the district, and before he had assumed its command, 
he urged Fremont, with all his strength, to occupy 
Columbus and Hickman forthwith, as of vast impor- 
tance, not only from their relation to Cairo and St. 
Louis, but to the whole Southern Confederacy. The 
major-general, however, was too much occupied with 
his " body-guard," and the fascinating ceremonials of 



106 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

his position, to heed the advice. Before Grant is 
three days at Cairo, he learns, to his disgust, that both 
Hickman and Cokunbus are occupied by the cohimns 
of Polk. Unable to rest quietly under such a disaster, 
^vithin four days after his return from Paducah he 
earnestly entreats permission from his commanding 
general to drive the enemy from these towns ; but 
no reply is vouchsafed to this request, or to any other 
application to make movements aggressive. It is per- 
fectly apparent that the superior intends to hold his 
subordinate in hand, and that Grant continually 
chnfes at the bit ; but he does not fret himself into a 
useless heat. With his wonted composure, he adapts 
himself to circumstances, and absorbs his mind in 
securing, beyond peradventure, the region which 
holds the continence of four important rivers, from 
any hostile enterprise. He devotes himself also to 
oruanizinu; the volunteers at Cairo — now amounting 
to twenty thousand men — into brigades and divisions : 
he teaches these heavy organizations to form line of 
battle and to change front. These complicated ma- 
uccuvres had been mastered but by few officers east 
or west ; and Grant's own proficiency in them was 
entirely due to the Mexican War. 

By the iirst of November, it became apparent to 
Fremont tliat Columbus was the fruitful source of 
disquietude to his entire department; and his percep- 
tion of this truth is wonderfully quickened by the 
fact, that it is now pouring re-enforcements into the 
army of Price, who is confronting him in South- 
eastern Missouri. He at length gives permission to 
Grant to demonstrate against it. Grant immediately 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 107 

moves down the river with four regiments of infan- 
try, a section of artillery, a squadron of cavalry, — 
twenty -eight hundred men in all. His object is 
threefold, — a d'econnoissance in force, a check to re- 
enforcements, and a trial of the mettle of his raw 
volunteers. He debarks his troops at Hunter's Point, 
on the Missouri shore.^ 

It is just daylight. Pie stations a battalion at some 
distance as a reserve, and also as guard to the trans- 
ports; and with the remainder of his command 
advances a mile towards Belmont, where he suddenly 
finds himself confronting a fortified camp of the ene- 
my. What was intended for a demonstration, now 
became an eno:aQ:ement. The blood of the men and 
the officers is up ; and although it is clear, that, if Bel- 
mont is carried, it cannot be held for an instant, for 
it is under the guns of Columbus, yet to have 
declined an eno-asi-ement would have demoralized 
the men, and have impaired all confidence in their 
commander. No : the time has come ; the hour is at 
hand. For the first time, the volunteers form battle- 
line in presence of the foe. The troops are firm but 
all untried ; the men charged with pluck, but wild 
as the wild ass's wildest colt; the officers are full 
grown and stalwart in determination, but mere suck- 
lings at the breast in war. McClernand is here to join 
in a high debate undreamed of by the bar and hust- 
ings ; Dougherty is here, fresh from the stump and 
the barbecue, skilled only to lead a political Israel; 
Rawlins is here on the staff of Grant, yet to serve 
by his side in blasts to which this before him is as 

1 Nov. 8, 1861. 



lOS LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the zephyr's breath to the tempest's roar, unconscious 
now that this Belmont acorn shall branch at Vicks- 
bur«r, and overshadow the Wilderness; Logan is here, 
his dark eye yielding fire, his swart face of more than 
Italian beauty lighted, as it were, by a slant beam 
from full-orbed, but yet unrisen victories. 

Grant advances with the skirmishers to reconnoitre, 
and to feel the enemy. He finds the country dotted 
with the gnarled survivors of a forest, laid low by 
the wear of ages and the more devouring axe of the 
pioneer ; and in his front one of those slpughs of de- 
spond which cools the ardor of an excited line yearning 
to move forward. Behind both is the enemy, neatly 
ulligned, with artillery lowering from his centre, and 
protected by an abatis formed of the fiillen mon- 
archs of the wood ; and beyond, towering above the 
bristling fence-work of melancholy gray, the stream- 
ers and white minarets of the tented city; and far 
below, seated on the mighty river, Belmont, and the 
picturesque colonnades of the three-decked steamers ; 
while, from the opposite bank, Columbus the Titan 
overlooks the scene. The problem is a simple one. 
" I must search for an opening," he says, " between 
those sloughs, and disperse that array in front of the 
camp." He returns to his own battle-line, and gives 
the order to advance over the only solid approach 
which can be found. Deploying through this open- 
ing, or lloundering through the mire and struggling 
with the underbrush, our battle-line steadily advances, 
received at every step by volleys of musketry, and 
by artillery too (for six pieces of cannon are bearing 
on it), gallantly led by their officers : for Grant is 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 109 

always up with the foremost skirmishers ; and 
McClernand and Dougherty and Logan, in advance 
of their regiments, leading on with gesticulating 
sword, and with appeal and exhortation, as was their 
wont when the breastworks of the opposition were 
to be stormed, and a hotly-contested election triumph- 
antly carried. With much toil, with great constancy^ 
with a vast expenditure of oratorical breath, through 
marsh, brake, brier, bullets, grape and canister, these 
untried freemen of Illinois and Iowa charge the 
abatis, carry the fortified camp, capture the artillery, 
and drive the enemy to the landing below the crest. 
Now the wildness of the troops and the verdancy of 
the officers were conspicuously exhibited : the election 
has been won, and an oration, of course, must ensue. 
They are disorganized by victory. Even Badeau, in 
his cautious and unemotional pages, asserts, "that 
instead of pursuing the enemj^, as he huddled and 
crouched under the river's bank, th<?y set about plun- 
dering; while their colonels, equally raw, shouted, and 
made stump-speeches for the Union." Meanwhile 
the man not particularly given to windy eloquence 
perceives that steamers are plying between Columbus 
and Belmont, with their triple decks crowded with 
re-enforcing gray-jackets ; and he becomes anxious to 
return to Hunter's Point before the enemy imperti- 
nently obtrudes upon this grand celebration. He 
wedges his steed into the thick of the crowd, and by 
dint of will tears it asunder. He speaks in sharp, 
curt phrase to officers and men, calling them by name. 
He sets fire to the enemy's camp, the chief source of 
this frantic inspiration, and dragoons the men into 



110 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

their ranks. Columbus now begins to shower shot 
upon the ardor of the rejoicing crowd ; and the neces- 
sity of disciphne, and the safety there is in the serried 
rank, becomes apparent even to the most jubihint 
soldier. The regiments now form with alacrity, and 
commence their return-march to the transports. 

The disorganized forces which had been hurled over 
the crest, finding that no notice was taken of them 
gradually formed themselves in soldierly array, and, 
augmented by three regiments which the steamboats 
had passed over from Columbus, were now creeping 
along under the bank, to interpose between our troops 
and the transports. Emerging from the trees and 
underbrush. Grant finds the discomfited foe again in 
line of battle between him and Hunter's Point. The 
troops, so ready for premature exultation, are now 
as unnecessarily depressed, exclaiming, "We are sur- 
rounded ! " and presuming that the sole resource is 
surrender. It was not so with him in command. He 
storms through the ranks, and, on a fit occasion for the 
exercise of tongue-power, uses it with a vengeance ; 
pealing from his merciless lips orders and imprecation 
joined, " Charge them, boys ! we have thrashed the 
rascals once, and can do it again." The coolness and 
detennination of the leader inspires every man in the 
ranks with his own contempt of death ; and the waver- 
ing line stifiens once more, and charges again with 
redoubled impetus the outnumbering foe, which in 
this second assault, unprotected by abatis, easily yields 
to the steady and vigorous pressure of our re-animat- 
ed men. For the second time, his line is broken, his 
troops dispersed ; again he is driven in confusion over 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? Ill 

tlie crest, and to the river-bank. The gunboats par- 
ticipate in the affair, and contribute to its success. 
Grant perceives that the three-deckers are still busy 
in crowding re-enforcements upon this bank, and that 
there is every prospect that the enemy will rally for 
a third attack, and therefore pushes on to the point. 
He orders the troops to re-embark, throwing out at 
the same time a detachment to gather up and bring 
in the wounded, personally supervising, and aiding 
with his own hands, the men in this merely mechani- 
cal employment, passing constantly between the trans- 
ports and the scene of the last struggle, — the incarna- 
tion of mind brought to bear on battle. Having seen 
the main body aboard. Grant, accompanied by a single 
staff officer, hastened to order in the battalion w^hich 
had been stationed as a reserve, and which he pre- 
sumed to be now covering the company in the field 
which was collecting the wounded, when he found that 
even these troops, participating in the general inex- 
perience, had withdrawn to the boats, without orders, 
although they were under the protection of the con- 
voy. Casting his eye around, he sees that the foe — 
again rallied — is extending his left with the intent 
of cutting off the transports. Polk, with a large force, 
is between Grant and his brigade, and is now pelting 
with slaughtering fire the blue mass of sentient beings 
on the steamers, — their easy target. The detachment 
in search of the wounded, and the main body, cannot 
both be saved ; and Grant was driven to a compromise. 
He turns slowly, and rides unostentatiously towards 
the landing, that he may not attract rebel civilities : 
as he approaches, he touches with the rowel the flank 



112 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

of his roan, which, shding down the bank on its 
haunches, as if conscious of its master's peril, trots 
with sure foot over the gangway plank, just as it is 
beinf hauled in to move the crowded steamers out of 
range of the rebel musketry. The gunboats now 
.steam to the rescue, taking position at the distance of 
sixty yards from the rebel columns, and, bringing 
their guns to bear, load the fields v^^ith swaths and 
windrows of corpses and wounded men. 

Stripped of rhetoric and romance, of the mythical 
adventures of its unfledged heroes, of the animated 
dialogrue with which sensation writers have invested 
it, this was the whole of the battle of Belmont. I 
give the casualties, and the numbers engaged, in a 
note.^ Criticism assailed it at the time on the false 
assumption that Grant intended to effect a perma- 
nent lodgement at Belmont, and was defeated in the 
undertaking. lie would have hardly attempted such 
a project, in the fjice of Columbus, w4th his twenty- 
eight hundred men ; and it will require some impu- 
dence to revamp this cavil now, when the orders 
under which he acted are spread upon the record, 
and clearly show the restricted purposes of the expe- 

1 "At Belmont, Grant lost four hundred and ciyhty-five men in killed, 
wounded, and missing. A hundred and twenty-five of his wounded fell into 
the hands of the rebels. He carried off a hundred and seventy-five prisoners 
and two guns, and spiked four other pieces ; three of these last were left 
bohind, because drawn by han.l ; and the other had an inefficient team. About 
seven thousand rebels were enga-ed ; and Polk sustained a loss of six hundred 
and forty-two men. By their own showing, the rebels had twice as many 
troops as Gr.uit, and lost one-third more. If any re-enforcements were to be 
f=ent to Price, they were by this operation detained ; and the movement of 
Oglcsby wa.s entirely protected. The enemy also remained concentrated there- 
after at Columbus, lest another and more serious attack should follow." — 
Badcau's Militari/ Uislory of Grant. 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 113 

dition. Upon this ground, too, the rebels gazetted it 
as one of their triumphs. The assumption is hardly 
vindicated by their overwhelming superiority in 
force, and by what Gen. Scott was in the habit of 
calling the " butcher's bill " at the foot of the page, 
and in the face, too, of the demonstrated objects of 
the expedition. The simple truth is, that its three- 
fold aim was more than secured. As a reconnois- 
sance, it disclosed that the enemy had erected river- 
batteries at Columbus, and occupied Belmont ; as a 
demonstration, it prevented re-enforcements from 
being sent to Price, for Polk forthwith concentrated 
upon Columbus, in daily expectation of a more 
serious attack ; as a test of the troops under fire, it 
surpassed expectations, for it taught them that nothing 
was wanting but experience to make them as stanch 
before the foe as Caesar's Tenth Legion, or Napoleon's 
Old Guard. Moreover, as a lesson to Grant, it con- 
firmed him in a maxim which became a living force 
during the rest of the war, and an essential part of 
his fighting system, — " When both parties are undis- 
ciplined, nothing is gained by a procrastinating drill, 
because the enemy improves as fast as yourself, and 
the manifold advantages of promptness are sacri- 
ficed." I have seen a letter from Grant to his father, 
penned shortly after the battle of Belmont, which 
breathes the full spirit of Napoleon's noble utter- 
ance, — " When soldiers have been baptized in the 
battle-fire, they have all one rank in my eyes." 

I have detailed only the operations in this district 
which Gen. Grant himself initiated and executed. 
The affair which I have just recounted was the last 



114 LIFE OF GENERAL GRAXT. 

enterprise in which he was permitted to engage while 
nnder the command of Gen. Fremont. Before con- 
cluding this page of his biography, I have nothing to 
add but the views which he expressed, when Gen. 
Polk solicited an exchange of prisoners ; showing sig- 
nally, that even at this early period, when the im- 
plied recognition of belligerent rights, disguised in 
such an overture, was not as clear to many shrewd 
statesmen as it is at present, that Gen. Grant was 
not to be entrapped into any subtle, metaphysical 
net. He declined the offer peremptorily, saying, " I 
recognize no Southern Confederacy myself, but will 
communicate with higher authorities for their views. 
Should I not be sustained, I will find means of com- 
municating with you." 



CHAPTER VII. 

HE BREAKS THE ENEMY'S CENTRE AT FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON. 
[February, March, April, 1862.] 

WE speedily enter upon a field of operations 
larger in their sweep, of greater magnitude, 
and more complicated in their varied relations, than 
the narrow limits of the South-Eastern District of 
Missouri will tolerate. I think that it must be ad- 
mitted, that, thus far. Grant has brought some mind 
to bear on war ; that he has infused some energy into 
the service ; and that he has administered the military 
affairs under his charge with a single eye to the good 
of the cause, and with all the vigor which was permit- 
ted him by his superior. It will be soon seen that 
one act which he performed without authority con- 
tributed largely to the first effectual blow which trea- 
son received. 

Two days after the affair at Belmont, Fremont was 
superseded by Major-Gen. Henry W. Halleck. Some 
chaufi^es were forthwith made in the boundaries of 
the Western Military Department, with which this 
biography is no farther concerned than to note 
that the jurisdiction of Halleck covers the part of 
Kentucky west of the Cumberland ; while the part 
of the same State east of the same river, with all of 
Tennessee, is apportioned to the Department of Ohio, 

115 



IIG LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

which was assigned to Brig.-Gen. Don Carlos Buell, 
whose headquarters were at Louisville. I call atten- 
tion to this partition of authority, because some of 
Grant's prospective movements will carry him into 
both of these departments. 

I am obliged to say that the change of command 
over Grant brought no change in the unadventurous 
svstem which previously prevailed in the Western 
Department. The new commander was no more en- 
terprising than Fremont; as much of a martinet, but 
less of a military fop ; and persisted, like the old, in 
the cllletfante style, of dictating from the study the 
operations of the field. Neither of them had a very 
lively perception that this state of things under their 
eyes was war ; and they had as little sympathy with 
the temper of volunteers as if they had been born on 
the steps of a throne, and inherited command as a 
birthright. 

Grant is still a subordinate officer merely, and can 
only be held responsible for operations which were 
adopted upon his suggestion, and for his mode of 
executing the orders of his superiors. 

I do not, of course, intend to intimate by this dis- 
tinction that he is not amenable to all the articles of 
war, and to the rules and regulations of the War De- 
partment. I sliould also notice in this connection 
that tlie naval service in the West, which was fast 
rising «(nto importance by the introduction of armored 
vessels of light draught, which could navigate all the 
channels and sweep all the alluvial shores, was, for 
the purpose of securing more harmonious co-opera- 
tion with the army, placed under the control of Hal- 
leck. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 117 

The new general confirms Grant in his command, 
but denominates it the District of Cairo, and disposes 
of the conflict of authority by a special order annex- 
ing Paducah. Grant immediately improves the an- 
nexation by seizing Smithlands, at the mouth of the 
Cumberland, on the Kentucky side. It clearly inti- 
mates what is revolvino; in his mind. 

I have already said, that, from the start, Grant 
yearns to do something; to strike stunning blows 
and repeat, before rebellion is resalient from the 
shock. 

It will soon appear that he was a minute-man 
also, ready to march at the word ; and in this respect 
a most signal excejotion to the dilatory generals who 
ruled the hour. For the first two months under Hal- 
leck, he is again kept at organization and drill ; and 
how repulsive it is to his spirit you can learn from 
his maxim, " No procrastinating drill when both bel- 
lig'erents are undisciplined." It was the era of everlast- 
ing preparation, unending delays, wearisome to every 
ardent soldier, and rasping to the public mind. " Do 
nothing " was a power in the State under McClellan 
the Unready. The roads of Virginia were impassable 
to every thing, save rebel columns ; there were no 
shoes, except on the feet of ubiquitous guerrillas ; no 
transportation, save in the lively armies of Lee and 
Johnson. McClellan was drilling around Washing- 
ton ; Halleck was drilling around St. Louis ; Buell at 
Louisville -, and the man " who won battles in his head 
before he won them in the field," — the man of all 
others best fitted to educate the War Department in 
the business of carrying on war, — shut out from 



118 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

' its councils, was drilling at Cairo ; everybody from 
Dan to Beersheba was kept upon the drill. The exas- 
peration of the nation at this protracted inactivity 
in the field was only held from defiant uproar by 
the confident assurance of Sir Oracle, "An astound- 
ing stroke of strategy is coming, which will demolish 
rebellion in an instant." The Republic seems to be 
in the hands of men drowned in details, whose 
heads were a mile from their hands; too cautious 
themselves to move on the enemy's works, too head- 
strono; to let their subordinates move. 

Columbus, to which attention has been frequently 
called, had now become a stronghold, garnished with 
one hundred and forty guns, planted on the Father 
of Waters, and styled impregnable. It absolutely 
commands the Mississippi River, — God's own mag- 
nificent road-gift to the nation. Behind its defences 
lies an army of upwards of twenty thousand men, 
which covers, as with wings, every trembling hamlet 
in this quarter of the Confederacy. Columbus, on 
the Mississippi, is the extreme and apparently invin- 
cible left of the enemy's gigantic line of posts, the 
extreme right of which must be looked for some hun- 
dred miles to the east at Bowling Green, on the Big 
Barren River in Kentucky. Here was the army of 
Johnston, second to none in the service of treason. 
Here was the intersection of the great lines *'of rail- 
road communication, reaching from Richmond to New 
Orleans, penetrating every portion of the rebel do- 
main, ramifying tliroughout Kentucky and Tennes- 
see,— the heart, in fact, which made itself felt on every 
acre of the Confederacy from centre to circumference. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN" THE CIVIL WAR ? 119 

By command of these interior arteries and veins of 
transportation, Johnston could impetuously throw his 
myrmidons in every direction, to Richmond, before 
McClellan could crawl to Yorktown ; to Baton Rouge, 
almost as soon as we could reach it from New Or- 
leans ; and to every intermediate post which needed 
re-enforcement : and thus Bowling Green was at this 
juncture an omnipresent power, clothed in terror, 
and riding on the wings of the wind. Still farther to 
the right of Bowling Green, in a mountain region 
almost resistless in itself, was another strong army 
under Zollicoffer, hovering over the entire region be- 
tween Johnston's right and the western acclivity of 
the Alleo-hanies. Thus one hand of Rebellion is 
on the mountain, and the other on the Mississippi. 
Conceive, then, a line one hundred and fifty miles in 
length, resting upon the AUeghanies, extending to 
Bowling Green, to Nashville, to Elkton, to Forts 
Henry and Donelson, and reposing, finally, on the 
unassailable works of Columbus ; and you will have 
a faint idea of that stupendous range of barriers 
which guards the northern approach to the semi- 
neutral States. Conceive this chain of posts, an actual, 
impenetrable, living line of armed men, and you will 
have a vague impression of its wonderful adaptation 
to all the purposes of war, — to assault and to de- 
fence, ^ the invasion of the border, and to the pro- 
tection of the cotton. States. 

I have described, in some detail, the extremities of 
this immense breastwork. I must now call particu- 
lar attention to its centre. The sole natural avenue 
of an invading army from the North into Tennessee 



120 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

and Kentucky, for which both belligerents are now 
struggling, was by means of two navigable rivers, the 
Tennessee and the Cumberland ; the former intersect- 
ing both States, and the latter penetrating both as 
far as Nashville. As if physical geography was in com- 
plicity with the rebel, and aiding his causes, their 
channels converge within twelve miles of each other, 
near the geographical centre of the two States, and 
near the middle of the line of defence with which I 
am now chiefly concerned. Here, at the nearest 
points of approximation, military science has stationed 
Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, and Fort Henry 
on the Tennessee, strong as the genius and resources 
of the engineer can make them, and mounted with 
the best ordnance in the world. That I may not 
seem to exaggerate the importance, in a military as- 
pect, of this narrow tongue of land between these 
converging channels, nor the strength of the sentinels 
which had been detailed to defend it, I wish to quote 
from the most reliable authority upon Gen. Grant's 
campaigns. 

'- Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson 
on the Cumberland, completel}^ commanded the navi- 
gation, and stood like great barred gateways against 
any advance of the national armies. Their sites had 
been selected with care ; they had been elaborately 
fortified ; and large garrisons were stationed to defend 
them. They covered the great railroad line of com- 
munication from east to west, through the border 
States; and their possession determined the fate of 
Kentucky and Tennessee."^ 

1 Badcau, p. 23. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL \YAE ? 121 

The transcendent importance of breaking this line 
was recognized by the inveterate do-nothings at 
Washington ; and various schemes for accomplishing 
it are dreamily meandering through their dazed and 
bewildered brains. McClellan was impressed with 
the idea of attacking it in East Tennessee ; Buell was 
aiming to cut it at Nashville, " because it is unfor- 
tified ; " and orders issued by Halleck to Grant indi- 
cate an inchoate attempt to storm it at Columbus : 
but, if any systematized method was matured of de- 
crepitating it from end to end by battering down the 
keystone, it remains hidden in the archives of the 
Department. Now, what military officer first pro- 
pounded the plan to charge, McDonald like, through 
the centre, turn both wings, and crackle into atoms 
this obdurate breakwater against the inflowing tides 
of Northern loyalty ? I answer, Ulysses S. Grant; and 
I pronounce it the grandest strategical idea which the 
war had yet brought forth. 

Forecasting early that the mouths of the Tennes- 
see and Cumberland were, in some way, vital to the 
rebellion-problem, he had seized the one at Paducah, 
and the other at Smithlands. On the 6th of Janu- 
aiy, 1862, he telegraphed to Halleck for permission 
to visit headquarters, and submit to him a project for 
capturing and holding Forts Henry and Donelson. 
Receivings no answer, he repeated the request on the 
20th. On the 22d, he started for Halleck's office, 
eager to seize all chances for the national glory 
and welfare; and having reached it on the 23d. 
spread before him the details of a combined army 
and navy movement for breaking down the ^' barred 



122 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

gateway " between the Tennessee and the Ciimber- 
hin-l. 

'• Warfare is so anxious and complex a business, that, 
against every vigorous movement, heaps of reasons 
can forever be found ; and if a man is so cold a lover 
of battle as to have no stronger guide than the poor 
balance and counter-balance of the arguments and 
counter-arguments which he addresses to his troubled 
spirit, his mind, driven first one way and then anoth- 
er, will oscillate, or even revoke ; turning miserably 
on its own axis, and making no movement straight 
forward." ^ Such was Halleck's temper when Grant 
submitted his proposal. "No reasons" in favor of 
such a " complex business " as storming two forts 
could move this "cold lover of battle." He finds 
'• argument and counter-argument " against the " vig- 
orous movement" proposed, and silences the projector 
"so quickly and sharply, that Grant said no more on 
the matter, and went back to Cairo with the idea that 
his commander thought him guilty of a great mili- 
tary blunder."' Cut the idea will not down at his 
bidding : it is rolling through his mind by night, and 
growing as it rolls ; gathering round it the mighty 
consequences dormant in its success. As Halleck's 
sneers were chiefly directed against the magnitjide 
of the undertaking, he once more temptingly pre- 
sents the bait, piecemeal, telegraphing him, on the 8th 
of January, " With permission, I will take and hold 
Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and establish and hold 
a large camp there." To make assurance doubly 
sure, he backs up his telegram with a letter by next 

1 ICingslakc's Crimean War, p. 525. 2 Badeau, p. 26. 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 123 

day's mail, in which he sa3^s, " In view of the large 
force now concentrating in this district, and the pres- 
ent feasibiUty of the plan, I would respectfully sug- 
gest the propriety of reducing Fort Henry, near the 
Kentucky and Tennessee line, and holding the posi- 
tion. If this is not done soon, there is but little doubt 
that the defences both on the Tennessee and Cum- 
berland Rivers will be materially strengthened. From 
Fort Henry it will be easy to operate either on the 
Cumberland (only twelve miles distant), Memphis, or 
Columbus. It will, besides, have a moral effect upon 
our troops to advance thence towards the rebel States. 
The advantages of this move are as perceptible to 
the general commanding as to myself: therefore fur- 
ther statements are unnecessary." ^ 

There was one stout old sailor and patriot who be- 
lieved that the Rebellion was to be crushed rather by 
earnest fighting than by political legerdemain. Grant 
contrives to magnetize Admiral Foote with the 
grandeur and practicability of his ideas ; and the ad- 
miral unites with him in begging Halleck to permit 
^'Commanding General Grant and myself" to carry 
and permanently occupy Fort Henry on the Tennes- 
see; until, finally, the major-general's mind "ceases to 
oscillate" "revoke," "turn miserably on its own 
axis;" and his perturbed spirit finds repose by giving 
the reluctant order, " Forward, Foote and Grant ! " 

I said, half a dozen pages back, that Grant was 
always yearning " to do something," and also that he 
"was a minute-man." I have proved, I think, the 
first of these assertions : I will now prove the second. 

1 Badcau, p. 27. 



124 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

On the SOth of Jcanuary, Halleck gave permission 
to attack the forts, and sent detailed instructions. 
On the 1st of February, Grant received them ; on the 
2d he started from Cairo with seventeen thousand 
men in transports ; on the 4th, he began debarkation 
at Bailey's Ferry, three miles below Fort Henry ; a\jd 
by eleven o'clock, on the night of the 5th, the landing 
of his troops was completed. 

On the morning of the 6th, the man who origi- 
nated this great enterprise begins to translate his brave 
thoughts into braver deeds. The Tennessee, upon its 
nearest approach here to its sister stream, deflects 
suddenly to the west, as if it is spreading an arm 
to embrace her ; and in the semicircle thus formed 
is seated Fort Henry, holding in the grasp of a rak- 
ing fire the channel below it, which, by this felicity 
of position, is obliged to run perpendicular to its 
river faces and andes. It is a full-bastioned field- 
work, presenting to the channel twelve guns admir- 
ably placed for the disturbance of an advancing fleet. 
On a commanding eminence, about a mile from the 
fort, was a fortified camp of the enemy, strong in nat- 
ural position, and protected by embankments and 
abatis, connected with rifle-pits at the prolongations 
of the principal front. No prudent assailant can af- 
ford to neglect these outposts; for they control the 
road to Donelson by which re-enforcements may be 
sent. The approaches, moreover, both to the camp 
and the fort, are further embarrassed by creeks, which, 
in this season of freshet, would alone almost forbid 
an infimtry attack. On the western bank of the 
Tennessee, and diagonally opposite to Fort Henry, is 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 125 

an auxiliary redan, called Fort Hieman, upon the sum- 
mit of a bluff overlooking all the defences on the 
eastern side of the river. 

These formidable works are garrisoned by twenty- 
eight hundred men, commanded by the same Gen. 
Tilghman who presented to Grant, at Paducah, the 
same view which Broglio and Soubise did to the re- 
joicing Frederick at Rosbach. There was every rea- 
son to anticipate a persistent and protracted resist- 
ance at this very threshold of Grant's adventure. 
One element essential to his success in the present 
undertaking is, that these works shall be carried at 
once as the base of ulterior operations ; for, so long 
as he remains in the open field, he is liable at any 
moment to be overwhelmed, either from Columbus, 
Donelson, or Bowling Green. The gunboats are here 
to co-operate, and a sudden dash is their law of action. 
Another essential element is, that the works I have 
delineated must be completely invested ; for they are 
too strong to bo carried by a coup de main, and the 
issues at stake are too momentous to warrant any de- 
parture from the most guarded mode of procedure.^ 
Thus one element is clamorous for despatch ; the 
other for delay. Grant therefore wisely determines 
upon an immediate attack, with as perfect an invest- 
ment as time will permit. Accordingly, on the nigjit 
of the 5th, Smith's brigade is thrown over the river 
to invest Fort Heiman ; and McClernand's columns 
are ordered to move on the morning of the 6th, and 
occupy the road to Donelson and Dover. 

1 I see by Halleck's instructions that Grant was ordered " fully to invest " 
Fort Henry. 



125 LIFE OF GENERAL GKANT. 

Let iiie now, for a moment, glance at the task im- 
posed upon Foote, and the implements with which 
he is furnished to accomplish it. He confronts twelve 
pieces of rifled cannon, charged with those modern 
projectiles which, if they can but pierce a ship's side, 
instantly convert it either into tinder-box or steam- 
chest. He has with him seven vessels in all ; but only 
four of them can presume to face artillerj- VN-liich 
deals in explosive shells. The Essex, Carondelet, 
Cincinnati, and St. Louis are iron -plated on their 
bows alone ; and each of them, of course, in paying 
her respects to the enemy, must ride head to the 
fort, and use only her single bow-gun, without any 
assistance from her broadsides. It is therefore twelve 
guns afloat against twelve guns ashore. The wooden 
walls of the Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington are 
mere egg-shells in such an affray. 

As Foote faces his antagonist, he perceives that 
Panther Island, which is heavily wooded, divides the 
river into two streams, and that the channel on his 
left is impassable at low water, but now, at its flood, 
that his vessels can easily ride it. The channel^ at 
the right is the main one, which the fort's batteries 
were more particularly designed to sweep. The island 
is but a mile and a half from the fort ; and, with the 
exception of the protection which it may afford, he 
will be, for nearly three miles, in the full play of a 
devastatint!; fire. 

After this survey, he self-communed thus : '' I will 
steer by the left channel, because it is the least ex- 
posed; I will ride head to the fort, because I am iion- 
plated only on my prows ; 1 will move with my iron- 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 127 

clads abreast, bec'ause I can thus most effectually 
employ my twelve bow-guns; I will order my three 
wooden ships to keep astern, under cover of the iron- 
clads, to hug the shore for additional shelter, and 
to shower the enemy's parapet with shrapnel and 
grape." In conformity with these conclusions, his 
orders are issued, and his dispositions made ; and 
having facetiously urged Gen. Grant to hurry up his 
blue-coats, saying, "I shall capture the fort before 
your land-lubbers reach it," he goes aboard the flag- 
ship, and awaits the signal to move. Smith's brigade 
is already in position; and, as the gunboats lift 
anchor, McClernand's columns, to the enlivening airs 
of their bands, step cheerfully forward. 

Foote cautiously feels his way through the shallow 
channel ai the left of the island, and soon emerges 
into the open river at the head of it, in unobstructed 
range of Henry, a mile and a quarter on the port- 
bow. Here the St. Louis, Cincinnati, Carondelet, 
Essex, deploy into line in the order which I have 
named them, from the right to the left. The wooden 
boats, far abaft, seek every shelter which the nature 
of the bank affords. Steadily abreast, the sturdy flo- 
tilla advances slowly, that they may not outmarch 
the columns of McClernand. When at a distance 
of seventeen hundred yards, there is thunder in the 
mountains: for the St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Ca- 
rondelet are hurling at the fort heavy shell from their 
eight-inch Dahlgrens; while an eighty-pound shell 
shrieks from the pivoted monster on the St. Louis ; 
and the Lexington, Tyler, and Conestoga, from a 
secure position, are sprinkling the battlements with 



128 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

an iron bail, small but penetratmg: Tbe rebels are 
not slow in responding ; and compliments are rapidly 
intercbanged between fort and fleet as tbe firing 
becomes general. Disorder soon appears in tbe rebel 
camp outside, quite surprising to tbe naval officers, 
wlio bad anticipated steadier nerves. At tbe first 
salute of tbe Cincinnati, a profound sensation is 
produced; but, at tbe fourtb round, a motley and 
panic-struck rabble pour out of tbe intrencbments, on 
tbeir way to Douelson. A portion of tbem, blind witb 
frenzy, seize a steamboat lying in tbe creek, and rusb 
down tbe river, into tbe very teetb of tbe fleet. A 
sing-le broadside would bave sunk tbem: but Foote 
scorns sucb victims : be was one of tbose- commanders 
wbo do not, in tbe battle, forget tbe campaign ; be is 
after tbe fort. . , 

Tbe troops of McClernand, wbicb were sent on tbeir 
way to cut off a retreat to Donelson, beld back by 
tbe fresbet-swoUen creeks ; by tbe roads, wbicb were 
mortar-beds ; by the clay soil of tbe bottoms, soaked 
botb by torrents of ram and inundation, and. adbesive 
as sboemaker's wax, — bad not balf readied tbeir point 
of destination, wben tbe first boom of tbe Cincinnati 
startles tbem into a balf bait, only to spring forward 
'•double-quick," galvanized by tbe cbeering sound. 
It is the longest road tbey ever travelled. Tbe detour 
tbrougb tbe wood wbicb tbey make, tbe creeks wbicb 
tbey lord, tbe muddy swamps tbey wallow tbrougb, 
tbe slippery bills wbicb tbey surmount, bring tbem 
no nearer to tbe fort; and tbey vow it recedes like a 
will-o'-tbe-wisp. Tbe four boats abreast falter not, 
but advance within six hundred yards, where tbey 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 120 

can see the smoke as it belches from the enemy's 
muzzles, mark the gunner as he pulls the cock, and 
the sand-bags and gabions knocked about by their 
own fire. It was here that a twenty-four-pound shot 
found a penetrable spot on the port-bow of the Essex, 
and crashed through the heav}^ oak-casings into her 
middle boiler. With the hiss of a loosened fiend, the 
scalding steam displaces the harmless and impalpable 
breath of heaven ; boilins^ water delug-es the shriekinsj 
tars, appalled by this new and frightful enemy. 
Twenty-eight of the crew are boiled to the bone ; and 
you may see, until to-day, the impress of the blister- 
ing vapor on the manly face of Porter the command- 
er. The Essex drops down the stream disabled, like 
a spent steed struggling homeward ; but, unmoved 
by the terrible fate of their consort, the three surviv- 
ors move steadily on, " head to the fort." Porter has 
gone; but Foote is still left, and Walke, Stemble, Pauld- 
ing; scores, too, of unchronicled and nameless he- 
roes, — the grim gunner at the bows; the smutched 
powder-monkey in the magazines ; the ruddy stoker 
and firemen in the sweltering hold ; the pilots, who, 
with eye clear and arm steady, aim these arsenals of 
wrath ; and hundreds of other men without a name, 
faithful all to country, as if they were not to be soon 
forgotten and despised, — each armed hand a legion. 

"No thought of flight, 
None of retreat ; no unbecoming deed 
That argued fear : each on himself relied 
As only in his arm the moment lay 
Of victory." 

The sprightly fire which this disaster evokes from 



130 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the rebel batteries, and the heavy shot which now 
frequently strike the plated pilot-houses, hardly sur- 
prise the commodore and the pilots " into a grunt," 
as one writer describes it. Not an inch does either 
boat deilcct from the target which all now most assidu- 
ously address, until, at shorter range, they tear up 
the embankment, dismantle the barbette guns, knock 
all embrasures into one, and annihilate the cannoneers. 
The rifled gun of the fort bursts ; an eighty-pound 
shell from the St. Louis dismounts another, killing 
every gunner that served it ; while the missiles from 
the fort rebound from the iron prows like pepper- 
corns. Such close quarters were not dreamed of in 
Tilghman's philosophy ; and when the admiral, with 
h'is invulnerable bows, runs in close enough to board 
him, his slackening fire betrays that oscillation of 
mind which precedes surrender. ^Yithin an hour and 
twelve minutes from the first gun, the rebel flag is 
down. 

Neither commander anticipated so rapid a reduc- 
tion of the forts. McClernand's columns, struggling 
through mud-pudding of almost immeasurable depth, 
hear the lull and the final cessation of the storm. 
What does it mean ? have the gunboats been driven 
back ? — are the questions which leap to all lips. That 
the fortifications upon which the science and labor of 
the South had been for months employed should 
yield after such brief resistance, and before infantry 
regiments could wade through eight miles of mud, 
is a conjecture too inconceivable to be entertained. 
And yet a messenger comes galloping through the 
slime with the intellTgence that it is even so; and 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 131 

upon his heels another mud-bespattered scout, who 
cries, " The rebels are forming battle-line on the hill ! " 
and still a third,' who throws up his hat with the ex- 
ultant shout, " The rascals are running to the Cum- 
berland ! " The fort had surrendered at discretion ; 
the working garrison, with the general and his staff, 
are captives. The main body, in the outworks, were 
in full retreat before McClernand's advance cuts the 
Donelson Road. 

Napoleon once said, " If the Alps be impassable, 
' there shall be no Alps,' will be the order of the day." 
If Grant could have disposed of the mud by this sum- 
mary process, he might have reached the camp in 
time to have grabbed the fugitives. But this would 
not have availed him, nor would a delay of the 
attack ; for we now learn by Gen. Tilghman's report 
to the rebel Secretary of War, that he had ordered the 
retreat of the main body early in the morning, — not 
hy the Donelson, but by the " Stewart Road." ^ 

Halleck, in the instructions which he gave Grant 
prior to his leaving Cairo, says not a word about 
Donelson. His directions exclusively relate to the 
capture and security of Henry. The day after the 
reduction. Grant pushed his cavalry to within four 

1 " My infontry, artillery, and cavalry, removed, of necessity, to avoid the 
fire of the gunboats, to the outworks, could not meet the enemy there. My 
only chance was to delay the enemy every moment possible, and retire the com- 
mand, now outside the main work, towards Fort Donelson ; resolving to suffer 
as little loss as possible. I retained only the heavj^ artillery company to fight 
the guns, and gave the oi-der to commence the movement at once. . . . My 
order being to retreat by way of Steicart Road. ... I ordered Col. Ileiman to 
join his command, and keep up the retreat in good order, whilst I would fight 
the guns as long as one was left, and sacrifice myself to save the main body of 
my troops." — Tilghman's Report 



132 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

miles of the Cumberland ; Jind the telegram which 
announces to his superior the fall of Henry says, " 1 
shall take and destroy Fort Donelson on the 8th." 
And on the same afternoon he issues an order to all 
the troops " to be ready to move at an early hour on 
the 8th. with two days' rations in their haversacks, 
and without encumbrances." But he was prevented 
for three days from offensive operations, — not by the 
roads merely, which are never impassable to Grant, 
but by the inundation of the narrow strip of land 
between the Tennessee and the Cumberland. During 
these three days, Halleck is active in pushing forward 
re-enforcements, — a duty which he ought to have per- 
formed with vigor and alacrity ; for it was his sole 
part, either in the design or execution, of the cam- 
paign. His telegrams cautiously evade any recogni- 
tion of his subordinate's intimation about the capture 
of Donelson ; and he is so silent upon such an impor- 
tant movement, that I should have presumed that he 
did not know of it, if I had not seen one of his con- 
temporary telegrams to Buell, to this effect, " Grant 
expects to take Fort Donelson on the 8th." During 
these three days, " big with the future," Halleck is 
profuse with orders which relate to the defence of 
Fort Henry, to holding it "at all hazards," to the 
destruction of the bridges by which it may be reached, 
to the '• shovels and picks " which are on their way 
to strengthen it, " to arranging the redan " so as to 
resist a land-attack, to the " transfer of guns " from 
the river to the land front, to '• impress slaves if 
necessary- to secure your position ; " but not a word, 
syllabic, or hint about the advance upon Donelson. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 133 

Indeed, the orders of Halleck and those of Grant 
during these three days illustrate more forcibly than 
a " set discourse " the difference in the character of 
these two officers. While Halleck is laying out de- 
fensive work enough to have employed the corps at 
Fort Henry for three months, Grant is entirely ab- 
sorbed by the offensive. While Plalleck is thinking 
of nothing but fortifying, Grant is thinking of nothing 
but "moving on the enemy's works." While the 
major-general, in his study, is only concerned in the 
protection of the fort already reduced, the brigadier- 
general, in the field, with his eye only on the fort to 
be won, is pushing out his cavalry to the Cumberland ; 
ordering his troops to be ready to move ; telegraphing 
to Foote, " I am only delaying for the return of the 
gunboats ; " and finally, without waiting either for 
them or the re-enforcements on their way, oblivious 
alike of " bridges," " redans," " water-fronts and land- 
fronts," " shovels and picks," " slaves," Fort Henry 
itself, on the morning of the 11th moves McCler- 
nand's brigade four miles towards Donelson, and on 
the morning of the 12th marches thitherward himself, 
with fifteen thousand men, leaving but twenty-five 
hundred to garrison the works on the Tennessee. By 
noon of the same day, his squadron of cavalry drive 
in the enemy's pickets ; and by night his skirmishers 
envelop the works upon the Cumberland. Said I 
not truty of Grant at Cairo, that he was a noble stag- 
hound " in leash " ? said I not truly that he W' as ready 
" to translate brave thoughts into braver deeds " ? 
need I say more to prove that Grant was " a minute- 
man " ? 



134 



LIFE OF GENEKAL GEANT. 



Calendar. 



FEBRCART, 



1862. 



Day of Month. 


Day of Week. 


Donelson Week. 


Twelfth. 


"Wednesday. 


Grant readies Donelson. 


Thirteenth. 


Thursday. 


Invested. 


Fourteenth. 


Friday. 


Bombarded. 


Fifteenth. 


Saturday. 


Stormed. 


Sixteenth. 


Sunday. 


Surrendered. 


Seventeenth. 


Monday. 


Occupied. 


Eighteenth. 


Tuesday. 


Grant Major-General. 



I shall name the day of the week only, in the jour- 
nal which follows. 

Thursday opens with good omen, clear and spar- 
kUng ; disclosing the neighborhood of the fort broken 
into canons and ravines, and bordered, near the river, 
b}' half precipitous bluffs with the rugged and rocky 
sides which the chamois loves. The country has 
once been well-wooded, and still a narrow, semicircu- 
lar belt of forest marks the jungle where lurk the 
enemy's rifle-pits ; but in front of it there is a wide 
margin of broken land, cleared of the heavy timber, 
but with the small trees, half severed at the heiolit 
of a man's breast, bent down outward into a rude 
abatis, vexatious to an assailant under fire of marks- 
men in tbose woods. 

The day is spent in reconnoitring, and in envelop- 
ing both flanks of the enemy. Gen. Smith's division 
— our extreme left — rests on Hickman's Creek, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 135 

which flows into the Cumberland below the enemy's 
extreme right. McClernand's division is stationed 
next, enclosing the town of Dover ; and, with his right 
resting on the river, virtually extends our Jine from 
the Cumberland at the right of the fort to the Cum- 
berland on the left of Dover, encircling the entire 
lines of the enemy. During the day. Grant continu- 
ally draws these lines closer to the works, and con- 
stantly throws out skirmishers to feel for position ; for 
he is entirely ignorant of the topography. It is far 
from being a dull day. Every ravine is scoured ; both 
parties occasionally send out shells on errands of in- 
quiry ; p^liarpshooters are searching the brushwood, 
meeting, now and then, vigilant sharpshooters of the 
foe; and stirring conflicts ensue, which would have 
been named battles in our Revolutionary War. The 
scrub-oaks ring with the crack of rifles, as bushwhack- 
er in blue meets bushwhacker in gray. Some adven- 
turous riflemen penetrate the jungle ; and duels from 
tree to tree test the smartness of dodgers. To enliven 
the scene, McClernand, with three regiments, springs 
upon a redoubt, and is thrown back with a shock 
which was stunning ; and the enemy, not to be out- 
done, leaps from his lair upon the Twenty-fifth Indi- 
ana ; and, having shocked it for an instant, is speed- 
ily shaken off* and driven to cover. This is what 
is called " feeling the enemy ; " and on this day cost 
the Republic three hundred men. Having overcome 
many broken ravines and heights, the army was 
established at night on a series of hills in general 
parallelism with the enemy's outworks, and sweeping 
round them from the Cumberland on his extreme 



13G LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

right to the Cumberland on his extreme left. Nearly 
every point of this circuit — three miles in length — 
is within musket-range of the enemy's breastworks. 
Upon the troops, bivouacked, with arms in their 
hands, on open ridges in front of the foe, the ther- 
mometer falls to twelve degrees above zero ; and a 
storm of snow and hail covers them with a blanket 
of ice. No fires can be built; for hostile pickets are 
abroad, and scattered shots crackle along the front. 
At midnight; the steam-whistle is heard which an- 
nounces the arrival of Foote with iron-clads and 
re-enforcements. Six thousand troops, under Gen. 
Lewis Wallace, land in the morning; and Grant gives 
them the centre, between Smith and McClernand, and 
his line is vastly strengthened thereby. . 

Friday opens with the ground covered with snow, 
and a hyperborean breeze sweeping over the desolate 
ridges and turbid river. The nature of the opera- 
tions 1 am to detail fortunately relieves me from a 
technical description of one of the most thorough- 
going works which was constructed during the civil 
war ; for the engagement which decided its fate was 
fought outside of the intrenchments, with the excep- 
tion of Smith's final charge on the defences of its 
south-western angle. I am not required to speak of 
the two unfordablc creeks, now filled with back-water 
from the Cumberland, which were a secure and natu- 
ral protection of its flanks; of line within line of 
rille-pits; of intrenchments within intrenchments; 
of the succession of ridges crowned with cannon and 
cloven by gulleys and ravines, each one a fortress by 
itself; nor of the isolated redoubts planted on every 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 137 

point of vantage; nor of Donelson itself, with its 
bastions, curtains, and parapets, lifted above all on a 
towering throne of defiance ; nor of the sixty-five 
guns and twenty-one thousand desperate men ^ who 
garrison these crests and gorges, — such, in brief, is 
the land-side ; but I am to-day called upon to address 
myself more particularly to its water-front. 

I am steaming up the Cumberland from its mouth 
in the Ohio to Dover in the State of Kentucky ; and, 
as I approach the town, I should steer due south by 
the compass, but for this sharp bend in its channel to 
the west, which accommodates Fort Donelson with 
such an advantageous position, that, if I do not port 
my helm, I shall run my bows into his jaws. In tech- 
nical language, he seizes with his guns the prolonga- 
tion of the river. You can see what an advantage 
Donelson has of me if I attempt to run by against his 
will. But this is not all : the giant is seated on a 
bluff one hundred feet in height ; irregular works are 
around him, planted with fifteen cannon, and covering 
a hundred acres. The hill which he domineers slopes 

1 On the last day of the fight, Grant had twenty-seven thousand men whom 
he could have put into action : of artilleiy, he had but the eight light batteries 
which started with him from Fort Henry. The rebels surrendered sixty-four 
guns. His entire loss during the siege was 2,041 in killed, wounded, and miss- 
ing ; of these 425 were killed. No exact account of the rebel loss, except in 
prisoners, can be given. Pillow reckons the rebel losses during the bicge at 
two thousand ; Grant at 2,500 Total rebel force at the commencement of the 
siege as follows : — 

Captured . 14,623 

Escaped with Floyd 3,000 

Escaped with Forrest 1,000 

Killed and wounded ,2,500 

Total rebel force at commencement of siege . . 21,123 

— Badea u,pass im . 
12* 



138 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

down to the river bend, where I am obliged to turn 
short to the right in order to pursue my voyage. 
In this bend on the river-bank he has placed, side by 
side, two^ water-batteries, mounted with thirteen 
o-uns at an elevation of thirty feet, whose muzzles 

larger than hogsheads to my excited fancy — stare 

me right in the eye as I stand upon the upper works 
of my steamer ; and he has so protected these bat- 
teries with breastworks and traverses, that if, against 
their fire, I could land five regiments on the shore, it 
would be hard to storm them, — to say nothing of the 
sharp rebukes which the giant himself w^ould shower 
upon me from his controlling seat on the bluff. 

While during Thursday the army was tightening 
around its intended victim, the Carondelet, avant- 
courier of the armored squadron, reaches the theatre 
of operations, and, without waiting to take breath, 
steams Avithin ranore of these w^ater-batteries. " Head 
to the fort," as at Henry, she hurls upwards of a hun- 
dred terrible missiles at her antagonist, but not with 
the decided impression of her previous performance ; 
for she cannot give to her pivoted hundred-pounder 
the desired elevation to reach the most impressible 
parts of the earthworks. Through one of her for- 
ward ports she receives a monster mass of iron, which 
dashes with terrific force asrainst the coal-ba^-s encas- 

o o 

ing her boiler, in a fell endeavor to repeat the trage- 
dy of the Essex. Startled by the rebuke, she aban- 
dons for a season the unequal contest. 

1 Tlic armament of the batteries consisted of eight thirty-two pounders, 
three tliirty-two pound Carronadcs, one eight-inch cohimbiad, and one rifled 
gun of thirty-two pounds caliljcr. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 139 

At two o'clock on Friday afternoon, the Louis- 
ville, St. Louis, Carondelet, and Mound City form 
the same line of battle which I described in the 
Fort Henry affair, with the Tyler, Lexington, and 
Conestoga covered, as then, by the armadilloes in 
front, and hugging closely the shore as they ap- 
proach the more terrible face of Donelson. At a 
distance of about a thousand yards, they open as be- 
fore, and then ensues one of those sublime overtures 
which would have inspired Beethoven when compos- 
ing that heroic symphony which fairly exhilarates the 
atmosphere of dungeons with the vibrations of liberty. 
For an hour and more, the air above the scene fairly 
hisses with flying shell ; and the slackening fire of the 
enemy, under short .range, begins to inspire hopes of 
his speedy surrender. One battery is already silenced, 
and but three gnuns in the other are talkative. The 
four steamers abreast have reached within four hun- 
dred yards, where, according to their wont, they dis- 
charge shrapnel and canister, for the purpose of 
disorganizing the j^^i^sonnel of a breastwork ; when a 
series of untoward calamities reverses the fortunes 
of the fight. A cone-shaped iniquity from the reb- 
els' rifled cannon demolishes at the same time the 
wheel-house and wheel of the Louisville. The pilot 
forthwith seizes the supplementary rudder aft, when, 
in a moment or two, it is also torn from his grasp by 
an accidental shot from the Tyler. Thus dismantled 
and unmanageable, the steamer swings round, and 
Achilles presents a vulnerable heel to Paris, who 
immediately pierces it with a death-dealing arrow. 
The steering apparatus of the St. Louis is also de- 



140 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

rann-ed by a shot, and searching missiles puncture the 
armor of the remaining iron-clads, when the admiral, 
with his flice to the foe, and a memento of Donelson in 
his foot, — which he will carry to the grave, — backs 
out of the engagement, with fifty-four men killed and 
wounded. 

Before dajdight, on Saturday morning, Grant is 
aboard the flag-ship, at the request of Foote, — who is 
unable to walk in consequence of his wound. The 
admiral urged him to hold Fort Donelson tightly in 
investment, until he should go to Cairo, repair dam- 
ages, and return with his flotilla for another bombard- 
ment of the fort. Before daylight, on the same 
morning, Floyd & Co. had come to the conclusion 
that the gripe was already tight enough to be com- 
fortable. While Grant is conferriuig with Foote, they 
have massed their forces on their left, opposite 
McArthur's brigade, — McClernand's division holding 
our extreme right, in close proximity to the river : 
it was the weakest in the line, and consisted of but 
two regiments. Next on the left was Col. Oglesby 
with five, next to him Col. W. 11. L. Wallace with 
the same number, and both well supplied with the 
regulation amount of artillery and cavalry. Farther 
on to the left is Gen. Lewis Wallace's division, holding 
our centre. The massed garrison of Donelson are 
waiting for the first gray streak of dawn. They are 
in solid columns by regiment, with company front, 
which has some advantages over fighting in line. 

At five o'clock, from three directions at once, three 
solid gray columns, with field batteries attached, drive 
against McArthur's slender lines of blue: and, thoui^h 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 141 

received with that long fasillacle which carries havoc 
into a cohunnecl mass of Hfe, yet by the ascendency 
of weight they roll up his brigade on gruff old 
Oglesby, who has "come here for the fort, and means 
to have it." Making what stand he can in ravines 
and underbrush for an hour or more, he, at length, is 
rolled upon W. H. L. Wallace, who, in turn, holds the 
accumulated war for two hours upon the brink of a 
ridge, until he is rolled upon the division of Lewis 
Wallace, at the centre of our line. This thoughtful 
officer, after a fluctuating fight with the exultant 
columns, at length seizes a road, which penetrates his 
bivouac, with a stout battery, and throws out heavy 
lines of infantr}^ right and left athwart the enemy's 
path. Behind it he receives all retiring regiments, 
helpless now from want of ammunition ; and, when 
their cartridge-boxes are refillecl, he is replenished by 
them with so much pluck and stamina that the new 
position, not only holds the weight of the rebel column, 
but throws it back with a demoralizing rebound. 
The first fiery onset is followed by charges less furi- 
ous, until, finally, a faltering and spavined jump indi- 
cates to the eye experienced in battle that the 
temper of the column is spoiled and its will broken. 
Grant, upon his return from the interview with the 
admiral, reaches his headquarters, which are at our 
extreme left, a mile or more from where Lewis Wal- 
lace stands, rooted to the earth like Ovid's Bacchantes, 
which were transformed into oaks. He learns from 
an aide who comes galloping up, that the right of his 
line is crumbling before the massed legions of Floyd. 
lie strikes the rowel deep, and first encounters Gen. 



142 LIFE OF GEXEEAL GE^SJS'T. 

Smith. Grant is impressed at once with the idea 
that the works in front of Smith's division have been 
serious!}' depleted by the enemy for the herculean 
labor on the left, and directs Smith to hold his entire 
division in hand for a charge at the word. Borne 
rapidly on by eagerness and anxiety, he soon en- 
counters the fugitives, who are sheltering themselves 
behind Wallace's living battlement. Grant is self- 
restrained in the heat of conflict, and administers no 
word of rebuke to these trembling soldiers : it is 
sufficient for him to know that many of them have 
had arms in their hands but for a week, and that this 
is their first encounter with the frightful realities of 
battle. He listens to their wild talk, which narrates 
that the whole rebel garrison is turned loose upon 
them, and are out to " stay ; " for they have " knap- 
sacks and haversacks with them." — " Are the haver- 
sacks filled ? " asks the general; and forthwith a dozen, 
belonging to prisoners, are shown him, well stuffed 
with three days' rations. Instantly, by the mtuition 
of common sense, he solves the mystery. " They are 
not out here to stay," he thoughtfully communes with 
himself, " but to cut their way through us to Nash- 
ville." When, in addition, he learns from Wallace, 
that they are not now following up with spirit the 
presumed advantage, but are quiet and silent, he 
quickly infers that Floyd and Pillow are the centre 
of a depressed and drooping soldiery, like this which 
surrounds himself; and it is intimated by an author^ 
who enjoys his confidence, that he now audibly utters 
a maxim which saved him in another dire extremity, 

^ Badcau, p. 45. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? ' 143 

" When both parties are shocked, the one which first 
attacks vigorously is sure to win." He acts like 
lightning upon his conviction : he dashes off an aide 
to Foote to implore him to make a demonstration, at 
least, with his crippled flotilla ; he re-enforces Wallace, 
and orders him to hold his position at all hazards, and 
to be prepared to advance in co-operation with our 
left wing ; he commands McClernand to gather up his 
fr.ao;ments, and re-extend himself to the Cumberland 
River j " he returns with all speed to Smith, and orders 
the assault. I will say here, though it anticipates by 
some hours the denouement of the drama, that his 
request was fulfilled ; and one of the orders, at least, 
was executed. Foote sends two of his gunboats to 
demonstrate against the river front. At three o'clock 
in the afternoon, Wallace, with commendable spirit 
and dash, storms on his right a hill, bi'oken on its 
side by outcropping rock, with two regiments, one 
in column and the other in line, and establishes him- 
self within a hundred and fifty yards of the enemy's 
intrenchments. If Gen. McClernand ever made a 
report of his operations on this eventful afternoon, I 
have not been so fortunate as to Jfind it. 

There were but three professional soldiers in an 
engagement which Grant's own guarded tongue pro- 
nounces a " terrible conflict." One was McPherson, 
who will yet know to — 

" Open when, and when to close, the ridges 
Of grim War." 

The other was Gen. Charles F. Smith, — a West Point 
graduate of thirty-seven years standing, who, after 



144 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Iji'illiaut achievements in the same battles of the Mex- 
ican War through which I have followed the rising 
plume of Grant, won his brevet of colonel in that de- 
cisive charsxe which carried the Convent of San Pablo 
on Churubusco's immortal day. He was not only 
seventeen years Grant's senior in age and service, but 
liad also been commnndant of the Military Academy 
when Grant was there as a cadet. Yet he yielded 
imphcitly to the sway of a junior and former pupil, 
with the true chivalry which marks the genuine sol- 
dier. With equal nobility of nature, Grant hesitated, 
when first called to address his former superior in 
mandatory tones, which the older officer perceiving, 
with great delicacy said to his chief, " I am now a 
subordinate, and I know a soldier's duty. I hope yon 
will feel no awkwardness about our new relations." 
He was slightly tinged with the contempt of volun- 
teers which characterizes the martinet, and durino^ his 
command at Paducah had visited their irregularity 
with so much severity as to provoke their resent- 
ment. But when they saw him in the front of bat- 
tle, they loved him as a fither, and gloried in him as 
a leader. Kinglake's photograph of Lacy Yea and 
his fusileers aptly illustrates the relation between 
Gen. Smith and his Hoosiers: "Lacy Yea was so 
rough an cnlbrcer of discipline that he had never 
been much liked in peace-time by those who had to 
oljey him ; but wlion once the Seventh Fusileers were 
in campaign, and still more when they came to be en- 
gaged witli tlie enemy, they found that their chief 
was a man wlio could and would seize for his regi- 
ment all such chances of welfare and glory as might 
come with tlie fortune of war." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 145 

He now selects Lauman's brigade as the storming 
party ; with the Second Iowa Regiment, formed in 
two lines, thirty paces apart, with a front of five 
companies each, as the point of his double-headed 
spear. The ridges which he is to escalade are among 
the most precipitous upon which the enemy is post- 
ed, and are crowned with a redoubt mounted with ar- 
tillery. The old veteran, gray with the weight of 
fifty-seven winters, but erect as Tecumseh, stations 
himself conspicuously on his charger between the 
two lines and at their head. With his hat on the point 
of his sword, he inspires the assailants with a fury 
which is irresistible. The enemy's grape and canis- 
ter plough through their ranks in vain ; for the col- 
umns are filled as fast as the brave fellows drop to 
the earth, and the two lines, penetrated as one man 
by the glorious example of their leader, charge up 
the hill with levelled bayonets, and, without returning 
a shot, lodge themselves in the key of the enemy's 
position, and by one tremendous volley clear it of 
the foe. If darkness had been warded off thirty min- 
utes longer, Donelson would that night have been won. 

Within the recesses of the fort, a scene is now 
transpiring which must search for a parallel among 
those barbarous nations where the chief is not only 
a leader, but a god to be saved from profane hands, 
if necessary, by an immolation of the whole tribe. As 
re-enforcements had been poured into the fort," Buck- 
ner, Pillow, and Floyd were successively sent to com- 
mand it, each ranking his predecessor, and each re- 
maining to serve under the new superior."^ 

1 Badeau, p. 38. 
IQ 



146 LIFE OF GETTER AL GRANT. 

A council is in session, with Floyd presiding ; and 
the question is, Shall we surrender ? Both the weight 
and majority of opinions are decidedly in the affirma- 
tive. Floyd, with that moral obliquity which was a 
part of his nature, disclaims the obligation of an offi- 
cer to share the fate of the private, and avows a deter- 
mination to save himself by flight. Pillow, who had 
seen service under better auspices, and from whom 
both more chivalry and more stoicism might have 
been reasonably expected, declares his intention to 
imitate the selfishness and share the infamy of his 
superior. Buckner, who had imbibed some little sen- 
timent of soldierly honor in the Military Academy of 
the government which he was now in arms to de- 
stroy, repudiates the baseness of his colleagues, and 
announces his determination to share the captivity 
of those who have trustingly confided to him their 
lives and safety. By such an example he but par- 
tially effaces an indelible stigma upon the annals of 
a short-lived Confederacy. Permitting his fugitive 
superiors to load two dilapidated steamers at the 
wharves of Dover with as many as would join 
them in this reckless abandonment, in a common 
peril, of all the ties of comradeship, he immediately 
forwards to Grant a flag of truce, asking for terms of 
surrender, and receives that famous reply which has 
been since translated into the tongue of all nations, 
and incorporated itself into the popular vocabulary 
as an everlasting proverb, « No terms other than an 
unconditional and innnediate surrender can be ac- 
cepted. I propose to move immediately upon your 
Nvork.^." Gen. Buckner accepts the " ungenerous and 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAB ? 147 

iincliivalrous terms ; " and thus the second " barred 
gateway " of the strategic line which once stretched 
unbroken from the Mississippi to the Alleghanies is 
surrendered to the leader who conceived the idea that 
cutting its centre was the only effectual way to clear 
the prospects of the campaign and the war, and to 
smooth the invader's path from the Ohio to the Gulf 

On the day of the final action, Halleck telegraphs 
Grant, " not to be too rash." On the day of the sur- 
render, he recognizes the receipt of the glorious news 
by limiting the operations of the flotilla on the Cum- 
berland to the destruction of railroads and bridges. 
He congratulates Gen. Hunter, who during the siege 
was at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for his share in the 
reduction of Donelson ; and recommends to the au- 
thorities at Washington Gen. Smith for promotion, 
because he, " when the battle was against us, turned 
the tide, and carried the enemy's outworks;" but, out 
of regard to Gen. Grant's modesty, punctiliously ab- 
stains from all congratulations to him. Smith him- 
self, when complimented by Buckner on the gal- 
lantry of his charge, replies, " Yes, it was well done, 
considering the smallness of the force that did it. No 
congratulations are due me : I simply obeyed orders." ^ 
The world is made up of different men. 

When the news of this triumph reaches Washing- 
ton, it finds at the head of the War Department a 
ma;i who was rapidly earning the antipathy of every 
" do-nothing," civil and military, in the land, and such 
denunciation from armed rebels as originated the 

1 Gen. Rawlins's Speech to the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, Nov. 
15, 1866. 



148 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

proverb, '•' You will always find the clubs under the 
good apple-tree." The terms in which he expresses 
approbation of Grant's method of dealing -with rebel- 
lion from this day forward becomes the universal sen- 
timent of the loyal nation, and Grant the persona- 
tion of unconditional and irrepressible fighting until 
it is subjugated : "We may well rejoice at the recent 
victories ; for they teach us that battles are to be ^von 
now, and by us, in the same and only manner that 
they were ever won by any people, or in any age 
since the days of Joshua, — by boldly pursuing and 
striking the foe. What, under the blessing of Provi- 
dence, I conceive to be the true organization of vic- 
tory, and military combination to end this w^ar, -svas 
declared in a few words by Gen. Grant's message to 
Gen. Buckner, 'I propose to move immediately on 
your works.' " 

Exactly a week from the commencement of the 
siege, — the last day on ray calendar, — President Lin- 
coln sent into the Senate the nomination of Ulysses 
S. Grant for the office of Major-General of Volunteers; 
and he was forthwith confirmed by the Senate. Be- 
fore the additional star was on his own shoulder-strap, 
he recommended Gen. Charles F. Smith for promotion 
to the same grade. 

War has been defined to be contention by force, for 
the purpose of crippling or overwhelming an enemy ; 
and, in glancing at the history of our war, it seems to 
me that we had made but little progress even in crip- 
pling our enemy, until the inflexible will and m'artial 
energies of Gen. Grant entered as an animating and 
directing soul into the armies of the Eepublic. Prior 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 149 

to his conspicuous appearance upon the grand arena, 
we had met with many reverses, and a few successes ; 
but the reverses were most depressing to the national 
spirit, and the successes had hardly penetrated the 
hide of the defiant monster which was confronting us. 
War had surged and resurged, with alternate triumph 
and defeat, over the devoted plains of Missouri. We 
had gained a lodgment on the coast of South Caro- 
lina, we held the sand-spits of Hatteras, and we had 
dearly purchased a strategical position on Roanoke 
Island. But in neither of these aflairs had we suc- 
ceeded in actually debilitating the enemy, and from 
neither of these points had we been able to penetrate 
the enemy's country much beyond the range of our 
cannon. The reduction of Donelson was one of those 
decided successes which let in a glance of sunlight, 
lift the cloud of despondency, and exhilarate the heart 
of nations. The country was jubilant to know that a 
general was at length found who seemed to under- 
stand what war meant, and what it did not mean, — 
that, in his judgment, it did not mean lying in camp 
and garrison, drilling and organizing for ever and 
ever ; but seeking the enemy, moving on his works, 
pushing and pounding until he gave way. And that, 
when he did, you were not to wait for weeks and 
months for horses, shoes, transportation; but that you 
were to push on with such resources as you had, hang 
on his flanks like grim Death, and, if one expedient 
failed, try another and another until he was utterly 
routed and dissolved. 

Thanksgiving to Almighty God was poured out 
from a million grateful hearts for sending us in the 



150 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

day of our extremity a positive man, of unchallenged 
fidelity to the cause, of faith, earnestness, and self-reli- 
ance. The national resources instantaneously revived. 
With renewed cheerfulness the mother gave up her 
son to the war, the millionnaire poured his wealth into 
the exchequer, when a leader was found who did not 
believe that the great chief of the rebel army was 
endowed with invincible genius for command, with 
supernatural resources in the field, — a leader who 
feared neither his strategy in planning, nor his ubi- 
quity in executing movements j but had the confidence 
in himself to believe, that, by butting and hammering 
away with mere human caution and skill and perse- 
verance, the mightiest paladin of treason could be 
outflanked or whipped.^ When the people began to 
gather in the fruits of this victory, they instantly saw 
that two rivers were opened into the very heart of the 
f^emi-neutral States, and that Kentucky and Tennessee 
were at the mercy of the invader. But, ignorant as 
they then were of the mutual dependence of positions 
in the same strategic series, the rapidity with which 
fortifications dropped from the Mississippi to the Big 
Barren River astonished them, like the work of an 
enchanter. Bowlini; Green was beinoj evacuated on 
Saturday the 15th, while Smith was storming the 
redoubt; on the 21st Grant pushed Gen. Smith 
up the Cuml:>erland, and took possession of Clarks- 
ville, fifty miles above Donelson; on the 23d the 
lear-guard of Johnston was leaving Nashville, and 
on the 25th it was occupied by the Union army ; on 

1 Spowh of Ilcnry C. Deming in the House of Representatives on the bill 
creating the grade of general. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 151 

the 27th Polk commenced withdrawing from Colmn- 
bus, and on March 3 the stars and stripes were wav- 
ing over that stronghold. When Grant was a pleb 
at West Point, among the seniors — who might have 
been active in the hazing discipline to which I have 
adverted — was one of the class of 1840, enrolled as 
from the same State with Grant himself The two 
cadets had the slight personal acquaintance which 
under such circumstances quite usually subsists be- 
tween members of different classes. Leaving Grant at 
the academy, the senior had graduated three years in 
advance, and, as he resigned his commission soon af- 
ter the Mexican war, their intercourse had never been 
renewed ; but promjotly returning to service at the 
outbreak of the Rebellion, under the new army organi- 
zation which it immediately created, he held an older 
commission as a brigadier-general, and, of course, out- 
ranked Grant. After the latter left for the Tennessee 
campaign, the brigade of the former was ordered to 
Cairo ; and, by virtue of superior rank, he assumed the 
command of the post. When from Cairo re-enforce- 
ments were being forwarded to Grant in the field, he 
received from his successor a note, dated Feb. 13, 
to the following purport : " I will do every thing in 
my power to hurry forward your re-enforcements and 
supplies ; and, if I could be of service myself, would 
gladly come, without making any question of rank 
with you or Gen. Smith." The letter was signed Wil- 
liam T. Sherman. 

I have alluded to this incident of the siege of Don- 
elson, because it was the first official communication 
between two men hereafter destined to fill the offices 



152 LIFE OF GENERAL GKANT. 

of general and lieutenant-general of our army, and 
was the origin of a friendship, which, tried by war, 
tried by peace, tried by both in the reciprocal rela- 
tions of superior and inferior, tried by the excited 
passion of wavering battle, tried by the machinations 
of false friends in the field, and by political agitators 
in the cabinet, tried by every circumstance which 
rends feeble ties of this nature, — has never for an 
instant wavered or been disturbed, but remains to- 
day warm and unbroken, as if both men were supe- 
rior to envy, jealousy, or resentment 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HE WINS THE VICTORY OF SHILOH. 

&ENERAL GRANT, on the 17th of February, 
under orders from Halleck, assumes the com- 
mand of the District of Tennessee, with " limits un- 
defined." From the 17th to the 25th, in letters and 
telegrams to headquarters in St. Louis, he repeatedly 
refers all subsequent movements in the campaign to 
his commander, and submissively solicits orders and 
instructions. On the 25th, he writes to Halleck that 
he intends to go to Nashville, " should there be no 
orders to prevent it." Having waited until the 27th 
for orders, he went to Nashville at that date, returned 
to Donelson the 28th, and on the same day reported 
to Halleck his visit and return. The object of the 
jaunt was to seek an interview with Gen. Buell, in 
order to determine the boundaries of their respect- 
ive jurisdictions, which were left undefined in general 
orders. 

This trip to Nashville is made the pretext for an 
open persecution on the part of Halleck, — the out- 
cropping of an antipathy which had long slumbered in 
the recesses of a cold and selfish nature, and its cause 
is the rebuke which Grant's achievements in the field 
continually administer to the carpet-knight, his closet 

153 



154 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

commander. The existence of such antiplthy was 
indicated by his snappish way of receiving Grant's 
plan of the campaign against the forts, by his refu- 
sal to recognize the movement against Donelson, by 
sullenly withholding congratulations upon its capture, 
by ungenerously ignoring all mention of his share in 
the victory in his despatches to the Department, by 
the implied censure contained in his letter to the 
secretary of war, giving to Gen. Smith the entire 
credit of the triumph. Proof is upon the record that 
Grant in advance notified him of the visit ; proof is 
upon the record that he waited two days for any 
restraining order ; and proof is upon the record that 
Grant daily communicated to headquarters all his 
movements, and all the returns and reports required 
either by special order or regulation. On the 2d of 
March, Grant received the only order which had been 
addressed to him by his major-general since the capit- 
ulation of Donelson, directing him to return to Fort 
Henry, as the more convenient base for operations 
on the line towards Corinth. Detailed instructions 
for an expedition in that direction accompany the 
order. The order is forthwith executed ; and, by 
the 4th of March, Grant is at Fort Henry with his 
entire command, except the garrison at Donelson. 
No complaint had reached him up to this date of any 
dissatisfaction with his conduct or that of his troops, 
or for any irregularity in his returns. And yet Gen. 
Badeau spreads on his pages a letter written on the 
od of March by Gen. Halleck to the general-in-chief 
at Washington, which, considering the relative posi- 
tion of the subordinate and the superior, — the one 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 155 

facing all the horrors of war in the field, the other 
beyond the reach of a hostile popgun, — will be read 
with amazement. It is Halleck's arraignment of 
Grant to McClellan. Such a curiosity in military 
jurisprudence is too interesting to be omitted ; for 
never since law martial existed was ever such a cul- 
prit indicted by such a prosecutor before such a judge. 
Bear in mind that it was written on the 3d of March, 
while the air of the entire loyal North was ringing 
with hallelujahs over the fall of Donelson, and the 
smoke of the storming party was but just lifting from 
its battlements : — 

"I have had no communication with Gen. Grant 
for -more than a week. He left his command without 
my authority, and went to Nashville. His army 
seems to be as much demoralized by the victory of 
Fort Donelson as was that of the Potomac by the de- 
feat of Bull Run. It is hard to censure a successful 
general immediately after a victory, but I think he 
richly deserves it. I can get no returns, no reports, 
no information of any kind, from him. Satisfied with 
his victory, he sits down and enjoys it without any 
regard to the future. I am worn out and tired by 
this neglect and inefi&ciency. C. F. Smith is almost 
the only officer equal to the emergency." 

Gen. Badeau further informs us, that having, doubt- 
less, received the requisite authority from Washing- 
ton, the letter of March 3 was followed by this tele- 
gram to Grant, on March 4 : — 

"You will place Major-Gen. C. F. Smith in com- 
mand of expedition, and remain yourself at Fort 
Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report 
strength and position of your command ? " 



156 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

I have not spread these documents upon this biog- 
raphy for the purpose of dwelhng long upon this 
disgusting specimen of ingratitude. Heaven forbid ! 
Nor for the purpose of pointing indignation at their 
author. The quahties which rendered him dangerous 
in war make him harmless in peace. I shall dismiss 
forever this malignity from these pages, after having 
"moralized the theme" by a quotation from Sir 
Thomas Browne's " Christian Morals," written two 
hundred years ago, but as faithful a linger-post to 
those bosoms which harbor the manly virtues, as 
pointed a warning from those where the opposite 
vices dwell, as if it had been penned w'ith special 
reference to the case in hand : — 

" Where true fortitude dwells, loyalty, bountj^, 
friendship, and fidelity may be found, A man may 
confide in persons constituted for noble ends, who 
dare do and suffer, and who have a hand to burn for 
their country and their friend. Small and creeping 
things are the product of petty souls. He is like to 
be mistaken who makes choice of a covetous man for 
a friend, or relieth upon the reed of narrow and pol- 
troon friendship. Pitiful things are only to be found 
in the cottage of such breasts ; but bright thoughts, 
clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and generous 
honesty are the gems of noble minds." 

I have transcribed these communications from the 
pages of Badeau, and shall borrow others from the 
game plentiful source, for the purpose of exhibiting the 
admirable behavior of Grant under a visitation from 
flagrant injustice in power which would have goaded 
to wrath and violence any man who was not a serene 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 157 

master of his passions. When I say that Washing- 
ton's conduct during the Conway cabal was not more 
exemplary and dignified, I can say no more. 

Grant at the time did not know the contents of 
Ilalleck's despatch of March 3 to McClellan. It was 
written with the expectation that it would be buried 
in the archives of the general-in-chief, and at a 
period, too, when neither conspirator nor victim ever 
surmised, that at no distant day, to the " open, sesame," 
of the maligned brigadier, that bureau would unfold 
every secret, and its grim pigeon-holes surrender 
every slanderous charge, every sly innuendo. 

He bows to the behest which deprives him of com- 
mand in the field, and sends a subordinate in his 
place, with calm submission to Halleck, and with 
generous congratulations to Smith, which moistens 
the eye of his former commandant at West Point, his 
veteran junior at Donelson. He disclaims, in a letter, 
all intentional or actual neglect, either of orders or 
returns. When March 9th brings from Halleck an- 
other telegram, couched in the language of explicit 
rebuke for disobedience to orders, irregularity of 
reports and returns, and a defiant trip to Nashville, 
he reiterates the assertion, "I have obeyed ever}'' 
order, reported returns daily to your chief of stafij 
written almost every day to yourself. "Remove me at 
once : I wish not to impede the success of our arms. 
My trip to Nashville was for no personal gratification, 
but for the good of the service." And, after intimating 
that there may be enemies between him and the 
light of his master's countenance, he asks to be re- 
lieved from command in this department ; thus con- 



158 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

descending to exjjlain charges of mere clerkly de- 
linquency, invented by a general who was already 
buried from the enemy by heaps upon heaps of 
paper and red tape. To a rebuke three days later, 
with the same specifications, the same austere rejoin- 
der is returned. To an accusation imputing to him 
the crime of justifying the marauding expeditions of 
troops under him, he answers, " I have only to refer 
you to my orders against marauding as the only 
reply which is necessary ; " and he might have 
added, " I sent last week to your headquarters officers 
under arrest, that they might be tried by j^ou for dis- 
obedience to these orders." 

Mollified somewhat by the exemplary patience 
with which this subordinate meets every infamous 
charge ; calmed by the calm temperament of the 
accused ; softened by the soft answer which turneth 
away wrath ; moved, it is to be hoped, by the devo- 
tion to country and the self-abnegation of his intended 
victim ; shrinking from driving to extremities a gen- 
eral around whom the hearts of the nation were 
clustering, and whose star might yet be in the ascen- 
dant ; hesitating ere he subjected to court of inquiry, 
or forced to resignation, a hero in the field, upon 
trumped-up delinquencies against the circumlocu- 
tion office of St. Louis, — the roaring prosecutor sud- 
denly becomes "gentle as a sucking dove," and 
vouchsafes on the 12th of March the followini; 
placebo : " You cannot be relieved of your command. 
Instead of relieving you, I wish you, as soon as your 
new army is in the field, to assume the command, and 
lead it on to new victories." To which Grant responds, 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR? 159 

*' After your letter, enclosing the copy of an anony- 
mous letter upon which severe censure was based, I 
felt as though it would be impossible for me to serve 
longer without a court of inquiry. Your telegram 
of yesterday, however, places such a different phase 
upon my position that I will again assume command, 
and give every effort to the success of' our cause. 
Under the worst circumstances, I would do the same." 
The next day, Halleck condescends to transmit to 
his subordinate copies of his correspondence with the 
"War Department : — 

I. Instructions from Lorenzo Thomas, adjutant- 
general, ordering Halleck to inquire into charges 
against Grant, of which the inquirer himself was the 
author in his 3d of March letter. 

II. Halleck's report that his own arraignment of 
Grant is unfounded in fact, unworthy of further no- 
tice, and recommending that he resume command in 
the field. 

Such, under our military system, are the resources 
and subterfuges of the prejudiced superior in hunt- 
ing down a victim. The famous letter of the 3d of 
March was not in the batch. A year or two after- 
wards, when research was made for it in the archives 
of the War Department, it was found that it had been 
abstracted from the files ; and it was only after a dili- 
gent hunt, that Gen. Badeau succeeded in capturing 
it. When an attempt was made to force Washington 
to resign, by a machination even more cruel than 
the one which was aimed at Grant, in which, too, 
anonymous letters were a part of the vile machinery, 
Mr. Everett says, " Washington bore himself, on th^s 



160 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRA^s'T. 

occa«ion, "vvith his usual dignity, and allowed the par- 
ties concerned, in the army and in Congress, to take 
refuge in explanations, disclaimers, and apologies, by 
■which those who made them gained no credit, and 
those who accepted them were not deceived." His- 
tory, after all, but repeats itself; and we have here a 
truthful delineation of Grant and his calumniators at 
this crisis in his career. 

If the reader is desirous of perusing in ftdl the 
correspondence of the parties, I refer him to Gen. 
Badeau's "Military History of General Ulysses S. 
Grant," to which I am indebted for the letters and 
telegrams which enable me to disclose the animus of 
Halleck in this afifliir, and which would never have 
seen the light but for the author's fortunate and envi- 
able intimacy with the head of the army. I wish to 
tender to the historian my unqualified obligations and 
acknowledgments. 

I have written the pages wdiich relate to this con- 
troversy with unfeigned reluctance. I am able to 
vindicate my hero without humiliating the idol of my 
neighbors. I have been driven into the foregoing 
narrative hy actual stress of duty, which would have 
been evaded if I could have done it without self- 
reproach. I believe that Grant was cruelly degraded, 
and I am bound to give the reasons of my belief. I 
believe that he displayed, under this persecution, 
patience, fortitude, forbearance, and genuine moral 
heroism ; and I am bound to tell the whys and where- 
fores in full, and without respect to persons. I could 
not allow the scandal, based upon a misapprehension 
of the reasons of his temporary deposition, to pasa 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 161 

from newspaper to newspaper, from mouth to mouth, 
without correction. I could not but exhibit the 
serenity with which he bore the unmerited chastise- 
ment of power. During Smith's temporary com- 
mand^ Grant displays the magnanimity of " one who 
had a hand to burn for his country and friend," and 
evinces it by hearty co-operation and sympathy with 
him in carrying out the purposes of his expedition. 
Although Grant was not mider arrest, there was an 
interregnum in his authority in the field from the 
4th to the 17th of March; and it is important that it 
should be noted here, for it is connected with future 
operations which were matured by Gen. Smith prior 
to Gen. Grant's resumption of command in the field. 

On the 17th of March, reinvested with all his for- 
mer authority, he removed his headquarters to Sa- 
vanna, Tenn. ; and Gen. Smith was the first to con- 
gratulate him upon the resumption of his old com- 
mand, "from which you were so unceremoniously, 
and, as I think, so unjustly, stricken down." 

After the enemy's strategic line was cut in twain, 
the rebels had designated the intersection of four rail- 
roads at Corinth, in North-western Mississippi, as a 
suitable point for the rendezvous of troops, and for 
seizing every advantage which the fortunes of war 
might place in their way. The expeditionary force 
which Grant now commands had been despatched 
towards Corinth by Ilalleck, on a service which is 
consonant with his military temper and genius, — the 
destruction of bridges and railroad connections. It 
was held back from exposing itself to risks by those 

discretionary maxims in which he delights, — "Avoid 
11 



lC-2 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

any general engagements \Yith the enemy in strong 
force." "It will be better to retreat than risk a 
general battle," — which maybe read to-day in his 
letters of instructions which authorized the expedi- 
tion. "When Grant assumes command, " Don't 
bring on any general engagement at Paris." " If 
the enemy appear in force, our troops must fall 
back," are the cautionary saws which reach him from 
St. Louis. To counteract the natural result of his 
own imbecile policy, Halleck is now forced to order 
up Buell, with forty thousand men, in support of 
Grant ; for, while our corps under this discreet man- 
agement were engaged with bridge -piers and rail- 
road ties, instead of armed legions, the enemy had 
gained time to concentrate such a force at Corinth, 
that, under less careful generalship, it was seriously 
feared he would run the risk of losinii; some men in 
battle by an aggressive movement. When Grant 
reaches his headquarters, he finds the alluvial banks 
of the Tennessee overflowed, and only such bold 
bluffs as Savanna, Crump's, and Pittsburg Landing, 
sufficiently raised to admit of the deployment of an 
army. These bluffs stretch along the banks for nine 
miles. Savanna is about four miles from Crump's, 
and the latter five from Pittsburo; Landin";. Gen. 
Smilli is now in the grasp of a fatal disease, and has 
fought his last battle ; but, while in command, he had 
selected Shiloh as the point where the enemy should 
be withstood. It was on the western bank of the 
river, and approached from the north by a ferry at 
Pittsburg Landing; and he had ordered Sherman's 
and Ilurlbut's divisions over the river, to take position 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 163 

there, near Shiloli Church. McClernancrs division, and 
Smith's, now under the command of W. H. L. Wal- 
lace, are in camp at Savanna ; and Grant immedi- 
ately orders them to concentrate upon Sherman and 
Hurlbut. Lewis Wallace's division is at Crump's 
Landing, lying upon the road to Purdy, within sup- 
porting distance of Shiloh ; and it is therefore allowed 
to retain its station. The re-enforcements which are 
rapidly pouring into headquarters are speedily 
organized into a new division, which is also soon 
ordered -to the front. Grant is under positive instruc- 
tions from Halleck, " to risk no ens-ao-ement until 
Buell arrives." He is, therefore, again "in leash," 
.waiting for Buell; and Buell's pace is snail-like, hav- 
ing, up to April 3, been seventeen days in marching 
ninety miles, and not yet in sight. Just as Grant was 
preparing to remove his own headquarters to Shiloh, 
he received from Buell a telegram dated the 4th, 
wdiich solicits an interview with him on the 5tli ; and 
Grant is still detained at Savanna, organizing the re- 
enforcements, and waiting for Buell. But he visited 
the front daily ; and, as the head of Buell's column 
had not hove in sight by the morning of the 5th, 
he w^ent, as was his w^ont, to Gen. Sherman's camp. 
He finds that the enemy has made a reconnoissance 
in force, that clouds of cavalry are hovering round, 
that there are daily skirmishes between the pickets, 
but no apprehension of an immediate attack in any 
mind. He returns to Savanna, and receives, late in 
the afternoon of the 5th, a note from Sii^rman, 
assuring him tliat no engagement is to be anticipated 
at present. Gen. Nelson now reaches Savanna with 



164 LIFE OF GENERAL GIIANT. 

the advanced division of Buell's army ; and (irant 
directs bim to take position within five miles of 
Pittsburg Landing, and hold his troops in hand to 
re-enforce the corps at Shiloh. 

Gen. Sherman asseverates, that in this whole 
region of country Gen. Smith could have selected no 
more favorable battle-field than Shiloh. Near the 
river, the country is broken into ravines ; and, fixrther 
on, covered over its entire surfjxce with patches of 
trees and underbrush, it stretches out nearly three 
miles to the log-chapel which is called Shiloh. On 
the right of the field is Snake Creek, and on the left 
Lick Creek ; and both are seeking the Tennessee in 
nearly parallel lines, and debouch into it with mouths, 
which are about three miles apart. The field opens 
to the south, which is the direction of Corinth and 
the enemy. The great advantage of the field is 
that the creeks, still in their flood, relieve the raw 
sjldier from any real or chimerical danger upon his 
tlanks, and restrict the enemy to a direct front attack.^ 

Sherman's division in advance holds our right 
near Shiloh Church, resting on Owl Creek, — one of 
the affluents of the Snake. McClernand's division, 
somewhat retired, overlaps the left of Sherman; 
next to him is Prentiss, in advance, and nearly on a 
prolongation of Sherman's front. A broken brigade 
of Stuart carries our forces to their extreme left on 
Lick Creek. Ilurlbut is massed a mile in the rear, 
and covering the interval between Prentiss and Mc- 
Clernand. Two miles in the rear of Sherman is 
W. II. L. "Wallace's division, professing to support 

1 Gen. Sherman's letter to the editor of the United-States Service Magazine. 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 165 

our most advanced front. Lewis Wallace's division 
is five miles off, at Crump's Landing, and has not yet 
been ordered in, because heavy masses of rebel 
infantry are threatening the Purdy Road. We have 
no intrenchments ; and the overflowed creeks, with 
their precipitous banks, are our only natural cover. 
Defending these lines, including the division of Lewds 
Wallace, we had thirty-eight thousand men on the 
first day of the battle. 

I have thus stationed the divisions, in accordance 
with the maps and authorities, where the enemy 
found our army on the morning of April C. I confess 
my inability to reduce these dispositions, and the re- 
lations of these bodies to each other, into a well-or- 
ganized battle-line. AVhile I have been penning the 
description, a side-thought has been continually whis- 
pering in my ear, " You are describing, not an army 
arrayed for action, but an encampment." I believe 
this word truthfully delineates the arrangement of 
our troops when they received the enemy at Shiloli. 
Every division, but one, first fought at its camp ; and 
it is mentioned as a singular exception, that Prentiss 
received the assault upon the outside. A month 
later, the foe would have found fortifications from the 
Lick to the Snake. The Western troops had hith- 
erto affected to despise the Roman S3^stem of fortify- 
ing every night, and the maxim of Napoleon which 
sanctions it; but the Shiloh lesson chastised theui 
into wisdom. The pick and the spade were after- 
wards held in deserved respect ; and such an extrava- 
gant re-action followed this admonition, that, within 
a few weeks, we shall behold a hundred and twenty 



IGG LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

thousand bayonets, on this same line of operations, 
paralyzed by overcaution in the use of th^se imple- 
ments, — the fruits of victory thrown away, the intent 
of a campaign defeated, and the enemy permitted to 
escape, by the delays and timidity engendered by 
excessive fortification. 

The most natural apology for this disjointed line 
is that our army was caught by a surprise -, but in no 
strict sense is this true. The enemy was immediately 
in our front. AVide awake were both soldiers and 
officers before the onslauiifht commenced. Doubled 

o 

were Prentiss's grand guards, and his pickets pushed 
out a mile. Sherman was under arms. The rear 
divisions had their horses saddled at their quarters 
in readiness for an attack. Our outposts and skir- 
mishers were so lively and demonstrative, " that at five 
o'clock on the morning of April G," as Beauregard 
says in his report, " a reconnoitring party of. the 
enemy having become engaged with the advanced 
pickets, the commander of the forces gave orders to 
commence the movement." And Braxton Bragg says, 
"The enemy did -not give us time to discuss the 
question of attack, for soon after dawn he commenced 
a rapid musketry fire on our pickets ; " and further 
on, '"'In about one mile we encountered him in strong; 
force along almost the entire line. His batteries 
were posted on eminences, with strong infantry sup- 
ports." This is conclusive upon the question of sur- 
prise. 

The exact truth is, that our army was on the alert, 
but in no expectation of an engagement that morn- 
uig. as is abundantly demonstrated by the following 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 167 

note, which Sherman sent to Grant, after he had re- 
turned to Savanna, late in the afternoon of the day 
before the battle : "April 5. I have no doubt that 
nothing more will occur to-day but some picket- 
firing. The enemy is saucy, but got the worst of it 
yesterday, and will not press our pickets far. I will 
not be drawn out far, unless with certainty of advan- 
tage ; and I do not apprehend any thing like an at- 
tack upon our position." Can there be any doubt 
that Sherman, who, be it remembered, held the most 
advanced position, went to sleep with this conviction 
on the night of the 5th, and woke up with it on the 
morning of the 6th of April ? 

Against these positions which I have sketched, 
Gen. A. Sidney Johnston, Beauregard, Bragg, and 
Polk, on Sunday, April 6, advanced with forty thou- 
sand men. By six o'clock, the pickets are driven in ; 
by half-past six, the skirmishers follow ; by seven, 
Prentiss and Stuart, on the extreme left, feel the first 
shock of battle ; " by a little after seven," Hildebrand, 
commanding the most advanced brigade of Sherman's 
division, beheld the enemy before him in columns of 
regiments four deep; "at eight o'clock," says Gen. 
Sherman, " I saw the glistening bayonets of inflmtry 
to our left front, in the woods beyond Lick Creek, and 
I became satisfied, for the first time, that the enemy 
designed a determined attack upon our whole line." 
McClernand pushes forward closer to Sherman ; Ilurl- 
but and W. H. L. Wallace advance their divisions to 
the support of their companions in the front ; and the 
battle speedily rages along the whole line, from creek 
to creek. 



168 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

Poetry and painting have so idealized the appear- 
ance and bearing of great commanders in action, that 
the popular sentiment is apt to be disappointed if a 
general is not always represented with a prancing 
charger, waving plume, and the " grand air " of Wash- 
ing-ton in Leutze's picture, or Frederick " on the last 
review." The difference between the ideal and the 
real is well exemplified by David's painting of " Nar 
poleon crossing the Alps," representing him on a 
charger-rampant, attempting to scale a precipice, 
contrasted with the well-known fact, that he actually 
crossed the mountains seated upon a mule, led by a 
muleteer. Versifiers have represented Marlborough 
and William " as turning thousands to flight by their 
single prowess, as dyeing rivers with the blood of 
their enemies, or winning battles merely by the 
strength of their muscle and skill in fence." Macaulay 
intimates that such description might do when bat- 
tles were won, as in Homer's time, by chiefs encased 
in celestial armor, one of whom could with ease hurl 
rocks which two sturdy hinds of a later period could 
not lift, but that we must reject them since war has 
become a science and a trade, and battles are won 
not by the hand but by the head. When an officer 
heads a forlorn hope, or a charge, it is undoubtedly 
his duty to assume the most animating and inspiring 
attitude ; and, if he is the man for the place, he will be 
on the lead with waving sword, and other minister- 
ing incitements to audacity. But a general-in-chief, 
commanding at an engagement, heads no charges : it 
is his duty to watch all the chances, to supervise all 
the movements, and, in the " midst of confusion, up- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 169 

roar, and slaughter, examine and dispose every thing 
with the serene wisdom of a higher intelligence/' 
His true attitude is one of intent and rapt reflection, 
ready to move, but not on a perpetual caracole ; and 
tragedy airs are out of place, and indicate a pre- 
tender rather than the genuine master of battle. 

Expect from Grant's extreme simplicity no such 
grand and statuesque attitudes. It is said of Lord 
Eaglan, that, "Beyond and apart from a just contempt 
for mere display, he had a strange hatred of the out- 
ward signs and tokens of military energy. Versed 
of old in real war, he knew that the clatter of a gen- 
eral briskly galloping hither and thither with staft' 
and orderlies did not, of necessity, imply any mo- 
mentous resolve, — that the aide&xle-camp swiftly shot 
off by a word, like arrows from a bow, were no sure 
signs of despatch or decisive action." Grant likewise 
despises all such flourish. He is neither hrusque nor 
insinuating in his address to the soldiers ; he returns 
the salute in an off-hand way. He neither calls them 
by name, nor makes them a speech. His bearing 
in battle is subdued rather than excited, calm in- 
stead of enthusiastic. He selects the stand-point 
most serviceable for oversight. He moves where the 
stress of battle calls him ; his attitude, the one w hich 
is most comfortable ; and his manner, both to officers 
and privates, as simple and unassuming as if he was 
chaffering about the price of sole-leather, over the 
counter at Galena. His dress is, habitually, more un- 
ostentatious than his behaviour, consisting of the reg- 
ulation undress-uniform, without sash or belt. On this 
warm day his coat is unbuttoned. He wears a^ low- 



170 LIFE OF GENEEAL GKANT. 

crowned felt hat, without any badge upon it of mili- 
tary rank or dif^tinction. 

It is unquestionably true that this extreme simpli- 
city of carriage and plainness of speech ; this absence 
of external parade and the "grand air;" this demean- 
or in battle, so unemotional, so unpretending, — veiled 
for a season, from the eye both of inferior and supe- 
]ior, the genuine military ability and force of Grant 
as a commander. Smith and Sherman understand 
his merits ; but his manner disguises his value from 
such devotees to high military style, West-Point eti- 
quette, as Halleck and Buell. They never ask his 
opinions, they never defer to his judgments ; they re- 
gard him as a successful blunderer. 

On the morning of the 6th, Grant was breakflist- 
ing at Savanna, — six miles in a direct line from 
Pittsburg Landing, — and hears the first pitiless pelt- 
ings of the coming storm. He orders Nelson to 
move up with his wdiole division to the ferry. lie 
halts at Crump's, to command Lewis Wallace to hold 
himself in readiness for an order to advance, and by 
eight o'clock he is on the battle-field. He moves up 
Ilurlbut and W. II. L. Wallace to the support of the 
divisions in the front ; he sends one orderly to expe- 
dite the movements of Nelson, another to instruct 
Lewis Wallace to march to Shiloh by the Hamburg 
Road, and then hastens to Sherman, who, with artil- 
lery and musketry, is assailing the massed columns 
of the foe, and stubbornly resisting his advance. 
'• Gen. Grant," says Sherman, in the letter from which 
I have already quoted, " visited my division in person, 
about ten, a.m., when the battle raiired fiercest. I was 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE .CIVIL ^YAE ? 171 

then on the right. After some general conversation, 
he remarked that I was doing right in stubbornly op- 
posing the progress of the enemy ; and, in answer to 
my inquiry as to cartridges, told me he had anticipated 
their want, and given orders accordingly. He then 
said his presence was more needed over to the left." 
Grant finds that Stuart had been swept away, and 
that Prentiss's division had been driven from their 
line outside of the camp, and were firmly holding a 
position within it, when suddenly his right brigade 
gives way in flight, and Hildebrand's, on Sherman's 
left, sympathizing in the panic, broke also and disap- 
peared, Prentiss still pounds and is pounded. Sher- 
man, fertile in expedients, swings his left to the rear, 
and by a pivoted movement, wheeling his right into 
line with it, assumes a position perpendicular to the 
original direction of his front. His left now connects 
with McClernand's right; and, as the entire line is 
being forced back, Sherman's right brigade pertina- 
ciously clings to Owl Creek, and defies the persistent 
efforts of Bragg to tear it from its hold. The weight 
of the enemy's colunnis now strikes McClernand ; but, 
sustained by Sherman's remaining brigades, they 
united hold for four long: hours a strongr line, whose 
right clings desperately to Owl Creek, and drifts 
obliquely towards the right flank of Hurlbut, in the 
rear. It was here that Grant, for the second time 
encountering Sherman, cheers and encourages him 
by his counsels. Wallace and Nelson are expected 
with anxious and longing hearts, but messenger after 
messenger is sent for them in vain. They had but 
six miles to march. Neither appeared on the field 
during the day. 



172 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Huilbut and W. IL L. Wallace, whose divisions 
connected McClernand's left with Prentiss, — while 
Sherman's right was tenaciously adhering to Owl 
Creek, and McClernand was valiantly holding the 

crround, were especially addressed by a concentrated 

mass of the enemy ; and their valor in resisting at 
this point four separate assaults saved our entire 
army from destruction. But they are at length forced 
to o-ive f-round, which exposed Prentiss — who was too 
stubborn, or too slow, to participate in the movement 
— to an attack on his flank, which resulted in the 
capture of his division. 

By four o'clock' we have abandoned our camps, and 
have been crowded slowly back to within half a mile 
of Pittsburg Landing, and hold there with a narrower 
front a zigzag line which still stretches from the Ten- 
nessee to Lick Creek. Nelson has reached the ferry- 
way on the opposite bank, the Tyler and Lex- 
ington are patrolling the river, and Lewis Wallace 
is within hail on the River Road. It was here that 
Grant had a third interview with Sherman. " About 
five ■ o'clock in the afternoon," saj^s Gen. Sherman, 
" before the sun set. Gen. Grant came again to me, 
and, after hearing my report of matters, explained to 
me the situation of affairs on the left, which were not 
as favorable ; still the enemy had failed to reach the 
landing of the boats. We agreed that the enemy 
had expended the furore of his attack ; and we esti- 
mated our loss, and approximated our then strength, 
including Lewis Wallace's fresh division, expected 
each minute. He then ordered me to get all things 
ready, and at daylight the next day to assume the 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 173 

ofTensive. That was before Gen. Buell had arrived; 
but lie was known to be near at hand. ... I remem- 
ber the fact the better from Gen. Grant's anecdote 
of his Donelson battle, which he told me then, for the 
first time : that, at a certain period of the battle, he 
saw that either side was ready to give way if the 
other showed a bold front ; and he determined to do 
that very thing, — to advance on the enemy, when, as 
he prognosticated, the enemy surrendered. At four 
in the afternoon of April 6, he thought the appear- 
ances the same; and he judged, with Lewis Wallace's 
fresh division, and such of our startled troops as had 
recovered their equilibrium, he w^ould be justified in 
dropping the defensive, and assuming the offensive in 
the morning. And, I repeat, I received such orders 
before I knew Gen. Buell's troops were at the river." 
Buell in person reaches Pittsburg Landing near the 
close of the afternoon, and finds Grant employing his 
cavalry squadrons, as moral suasion, to urge back to 
the field the miserable crowd of fugitives — six thou- 
sand in number — who w^ere making day hideous 
with the piteous lamentation of cowardice and despair. 
Buell receives Grant with chilling punctilio, which 
recognizes the rights, but distrusts the military 
capacit}^, of his superior. Yielding, however, to the 
imperious necessities of the situation, he stifled his 
chagrin, and displayed commendable alacrity in hurry- 
ing up his lagging battalions. The only conversation 
which occurred between them has been thus reported 
by a biographer of Grant : '- Where, if beaten, can 
you retreat, general ? " asked Buell. " I do not 
mean to be beaten," is Grant's sententious reply. 



174 LIFE OF GENERAL GEAXT. 

'•But suppose 3'ou are defeated in spite of your 
exertions?" — " Well, here are the transports to carry 
the remains of the army across the river." — " But, 
general," urged Buell, "your whole transports cannot 
contain even ten thousand men, and it will be impos- 
sible for them to make more than one trip in the ffice 
of the enemj' ." — " Well, if I am beaten," says Gen. 
Grant, " transportation for ten thousand men will be 
abundant; for that is more than will be left." 

The creeks upon our flanks were of inestimable 
service during the entire day. In the morning, as I 
have said, they relieved the volunteers from all panic 
concerning a flank attack. They converge as they 
approach their mouths ; and, when the eneni}^ begins 
to press us back towards Pittsburg Landing, this nat- 
ural relation of the creeks to each other continued to 
accommodate our front, growing constantly narrower ; 
for we enter the wedge-shaped peninsula which they 
form, as if it were a weir in a river. Sherman's right, 
in the zigzag line we finally assume, was never torn 
from its grasp upon the Snake ; but the capture of 
Prentiss, and the feebler resistance of our left, has 
forced back this flank from the Lick to a rest upon 
the Tennessee between the mouths of 
the two creeks. Conceive a chain fast 
hooked to the Snake, and stretching 
thus, obliquely, to the Tennessee, and 
3'ou have our new direction. The ene- 
my pours over the Lick ; and, as he has 
failed to tear Sherman from the Snake, 
he attempts to worm round our left, and, 
getting behind him, break his hold by rapping him 




WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 175 

over the knuckles. But here the fehcities of the 
ground again come to our reUef. The ravines are 
near the river; and one of these was seized in the 
morning by our grand siege-battery ; and, as Hurlbut 
comes in with our pressed and fluttering left, the 
great guns step before him, like " the big brother," 
and shake a fist at the pursuers. Behind their stal- 
wart guardianship, he tightens up his own columns, 
and receives all fainting regiments from the field. Let 
Hurlbut, in his own simple language, describe the 
closing half-hour : " On reaching the twenty-four- 
pounder siege-guns in battery near the river, I again 
succeeded in forming line of battle in rear of guns ; 
and, by direction of Major-Gen. Grant, I assumed com- 
mand of all troops that came up. Broken regiments 
and disordered battalions came into line gradually 
upon my division. 

- "Major Cavender posted six of his twenty-pound 
pieces on my right ; and I sent my aide to establish 
the light artillery — all that could be found — on my 
left. Many officers and men unknown to me — and 
whom I never desire to know — fled in confusion 
through the line. Many gallant soldiers and brave offi- 
cers rallied^ steadily on the new line. I passed to the 
right, and found myself in communication with Gen. 
Sherman,and received his instructions. In a short time, 
the enemy appeared on the crest of the ridge, led by 
the Eighteenth Louisiana, but were cut to pieces by 
the steady and murderous fire of the artillery. Dr. 
Corvine again took charge of one of the heavy twen- 
ty-four-pounders ; and the line of fire of that gun was 
the one upon which the other pieces concentrated. 



17G LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

Gcii. f-'licnnan's artillery also was rapidly engaged ; 
and, after an artillery contest of some duration, the 
enemy fell back. Capt. Gwin, of the navy, had called 
upon me by one of his officers to mark the place the 
gunboats might take to open their fire. I advised 
him to take position on the left of my camp-ground, 
and open fire as soon as our fire was within that line. 
He did so ; and from my own observation, and the 
statement of prisoners, his fire was most effectual in 
stopping the advance of the enemy on Sunday after- 
noon and niiiht. About dusk the firim? ceased. I 
advanced my division a hundred yards to the front, 
threw out pickets, and officers and men bivouacked 
in a heavy storm of rain." 

This was Beauregard's last spring ; for A. Sidney 
Johnston lies in his own blood at the captured head- 
quarters of McClernand. Thus fell the curtain of 
night upon a drama which had opened with the dawn. 
From the time that the enemy's might first fell upon 
the reserved divisions, Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace 
had fought side by side, right and left arms to each 
other, in one of those terrific grapples which rend 
arteries and crack muscles ; and, unless the right arm 
had been torn from its socket, Wallace would have 
stood by his battle-companion in the ravine. But he 
is mortally wounded. 

Gratitude unmeasured, infinite, is due to Sherman. 
When we were crowded from the front, he clino;s with 
his right hand to the Snake, with his left to McCler- 
nand ; and he, in turn, seizes and is seized by Wallace 
and Hurlbut, who in grim determination agonize 
for hours, with their left flank in air. Upon the 



WHAT DID HE DO IK THE CIVIL WAR ? 177 

strength of Sherman's grip, as if they were hanging 
to each other over a precipice, the salvation of the 
whole depends. "Tell me," says Thomas Hughes, 
"which boat holds the most men who can do better 
than their best at a'pinoh, who will risk a broken blood- 
vessel, and I will tell you how the race will end." Sher- 
man was such a man at the pinch of Shiloh's battle. 

Before I was as familiar with the first day at Shiloh 
as I have since become, I had occasion, in another place, 
to characterize it in the following language : It was a 
vast melee between separate regiments, brigades, and 
divisions, each fighting on its own hook and for its 
own position, with but little concert of action and 
with but slight mutual support. And yet, in one 
important respect, it contributed more to the eventual 
success of our arms than any action in the war. It 
was the experimentimi criicis which first tested the 
respective stamina and manliness of the two belliger- 
ents. It was the first hurling together of the two 
people upon a large scale in a hand-to-hand fight; 
and, when the enemy retreated from that broken and 
gory field, he retreated with his arrogance tamed, 
and his dream of invincibility dispelled forever. No 
Southern soldier from that terrible day presumed to 
despise again the courage, the persistence, or the 
marksmanship of the adversary ; for there was weep- 
ing and lamentation in every Southern home. 

After the most careful study of all the reports and 
descriptions from participants in it, on both sides, I 
am inclined to reiterate this judgment, especially as I 
find m^^self sustained by the authoritative opinion of 
Gen. Sherman, who says, in the letter to which I have 

12 



178 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

SO frequently referred, " If there were cany error in 
putting that army on the west side of the Tennessee, 
exposed to the superior force of the enemy, also 
assembling, at Corinth, the mistake was not Gen. 
Grant's. But there was no mistake. It was necessary 
that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the manhood 
of the two armies, should come off; and that was as 
good a place as any. It was not, then, a question of 
military skill and strategy, but of courage and pluck ; 
and I am convinced that every life lost that day to 
us was necessary ; for otherwise, at Corinth, at Mem- 
phis, at Vicksburg, we should have found harder 
resistance, — had we not shown our enemies, that, 
rude and untutored as we then were, we could fight 
as well as they." 

During the hours of the night. Gen. Grant is mak- 
ing his dispositions for the following day in consulta- 
tion with Buell, and with Sherman also, whose bivouac 
they visit together in the evening. At one o'clock, 
he orders Lewis Wallace to form his division upon 
the riii;ht of that famous "hook " of Sherman's which 
partially redeemed the disasters of yesterday. Upon 
his left, in the order named, are Sherman, McCler- 
nand. Ilurlbut, re-enforced by remnants of Prentiss 
and W. 11. L. Wallace ; in the order named, McCook, 
Crittenden, and Nelson's divisions, embodying twenty 
thousand fresh troops, prolonged to the extreme left 
this magnificent battle-front. Nothing more con- 
clusively proves the terrible ravages in the enemy's 
ranks yesterday than one sentence from Braxton 
Bragg's report, where he says, " Our troops, exhausted 
by days of excessive fatigue and want of rest, with 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 179 

ranks thinned by killed, wounded, and stragglers, 
amounting in the whole to jiearly half our force, 
fought bravely, but with the want of that animation 
and spirit which characterized them on the preceding 
day." Participators in both actions affirm, that the 
struggle of to-day was feeble in comparison with yes- 
terday. The morning opens with the ground drenched 
with the rain of the night, but every man in both 
armies is alert at dawn. 

Nelson, obliquely advanced, is put in motion by 
six o'clock, and at half-past six finds the enemy, and 
drives him with ease for half an hour, when he halts, 
that his exposed right flank may be covered by Crit- 
tenden's division, which is rapidly advancing. Having 
as yet found no foe, Crittenden joins his left brigade 
to Nelson's right, and prolongs the line for a mile. 
Both divisions now move steadily forward against the 
annoying fire of sharpshooters in the underwood, 
and the volleyed fire which indicates the regiment 
in line ; but, as soon as they begin to feel grape and 
canister, they again halt, under such protection as 
the ground affords, that our field batteries may be 
brought into commanding positions. Meanwhile 
McCook's veteran division, splendidly alligned, having 
cleared of marksmen a coppice in its front, sw^eeps 
up with its serried line of bayonets to the right of 
Crittenden. McClernand has not yet closed, for his 
feeble division is already struggling against artillery. 

The entire left wing of our army do not hesitate 
to advance, although McCook's extreme right is 
uncovered. By ten o'clock, Sherman hears to the 
left the roar of battle, and to the right the crack of 



180 LIFE Of GENEEAL GRANT. 

% 

Wallace's rifles, and, with his shattered division again 
in array, promptly advances into a storm of bullets, 
.supported only by a single section of artillery, drawn 
by hand. Lewis Wallace, on the right, having esca- 
laded a crest in front of him, which had for an hour 
or two contested his progress, deploys into line upon 
its summit, and finds himself in the face of seemingly 
interminable parallels of bristling infantry, supported 
by unlimbered artillery. He falls back under cover 
of the crest, until his own batteries can be brought 
to bear. From right to left the embattled host now 
3onfronts artillery, and along its three miles of front 
I cannonade thunders. 

At this stao:e of the enoraQ-ement, the whole line 
^ohering as one man, — McClernand and Hurlbut 
being used as supports, — war presented one of those 
phases which has fascinated with it the noblest of the 
race. In the face of all that we can know or dream 
of terror, the welded divisions, inspired and moved 
by one volition, move with united and irresistible 
might to the accomplishment of a consummate pur- 
pose, sublimely illustrating the superiority of the 
soul of man to every material peril and impediment. 
Accelerated by all the past, they seem to be fighting 
for all the future. Impelled by causes which reach 
back to the discovery of the continent, they are aimed 
at effects endless in duration and immeasurable in 
influence. 

For two hours now, it is a sturdy, obstinate struggle 
against the infernal enginery which the destructive 
genius of a race has perfected for the annihilation of 
armies, planted on every crest, hid in every ravine. 



I 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE, ? 18i 

and masked in every wood. Nelson, flushed by the 
easy triumph of the morning, is unexpectedly struck, 
from a clump of heavy timber, by a furious cannon- 
ade, and two massed columns of superior weight. His 
own artillery is swamped at Savanna ; and, staggered 
by this terrible shock, he yields a little, until Buell 
hurries to his relief three well-manned batteries, and 
then, by brigades at double-quick, swiftly clears his 
entire front, and finds himself, at one o'clock, vexed 
only by a trifling fusillade. But he hears on his right 
the tempest unarrested, unbroken, as Crittenden 
scoops out of a gulch at his left a rebel swarm of all 
arms ; as Rousseau's high-mettled brigade, of McCook's 
soldierly division, clears the dreaded water-oaks of 
the flower of Beauregard's army ; as Sherman, now 
abreast of McCook, labors with his excitable will, all 
nerved by the trials of Sunday, and hurls from the 
twenty-four pounders of McArthur a withering blast 
of death, which the enemy's battery on the left of 
McCook, and on the right of Shiloh Church, struggle 
in vain to endure; as Lewis Wallace shivers the 
parallel hues in his front, and scatters the enemy, 
like foxes, through the undulating woods and over 
the cornfields. * 

At four o'clock, Nelson is in so much tranquillity 
that he may be fairly said to brush away with the 
wave of his hand any pestilent fragments which buzz 
around him. At four o'clock, Crittenden and McCook 
have scoured every ravine, scaled every crest in their 
front, swept every thing before them up to our ori- 
ginal lines of Sunday morning, and are driving the 
vanquished rebels up the Corinth Road, back to 



182 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

their intrencbments. At four o'clock, Gen. Sherman, 
bleeding from three wounds, directs his drooping 
hrio'ades to resume their original camps. At four 
o'clock, AVaHace feels the mass in his front dissolving 
as if from some inherent law of its own ; and, at the 
word '"Forward," his Nebraska hunters advance with 
unresisted step, goading by a devastating fire from all 
arms a confused jumble of all arms in desperate 
flicrht. From the crest of a hill, where it had been a 
flame of fire, the Crescent Kegiment of New Orleans 
melts like a mist ; the Washington Artillery, of Ma- 
nassas renown, are essaying to lash their weary ani- 
mals into a gallop. Beauregard darts for an instant 
athwart Wallace's front, as if he were inciting the 
broken fugitives to strike once more for their waning 
invincibility ; and he hears the exulting cheer of Crit- 
tenden and McCook, as they drive the now van- 
quished foe through the recaptured camp of Sherman. 
The battle of the second day was so triumphant 
from the start, that Grant had but little to do but 
encoura'jre the subordinate ijrenerals and animate 
their tr(K)[)s. In the course of the night which pre- 
ceded it, he visited every division on the field, from 
Nelson to Wallace, and gave explicit directions for 
the operations of the morning. While at the front, 
during the heat of the engagement, he led in person 
an Ohio regiment which he found faltering, rallied to 
its aid another which he found retreating, and, inspirit- 
ing both by example and precept, carried a position 
of no inconsiderable importance in determining the 
fate of the day, and from which they had been pre- 
viously repulsed. He rides along Crittenden's and 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 183 

McCook's line, and endeavors to stimulate them into 
a more determined pursuit of the foe, but could 
hardly find it in his heart to command battalions so 
foot-sore and battled-stained to advance. He des- 
patches Wood, — one of Buell's brigadiers who had 
come up too late for action, — and Sherman's over- 
worked regiments, to ascertain the direction of the 
enemy's flight. They follow up Beauregard several 
miles towards Corinth, discovering at every step the 
wrecks and cUhris of an army,^ure indications of thor- 
ough rout and demoralization ; but the roads are too 
heavy, and our own men too weary, to admit of any 
thing more than a mere desultory chase. The victori- 
ous army encamp upon the field of battle. The enemy 
leaves behind him his dead, and a large portion of his 
wounded.-^ 

The moral effects of Shiloh I have already indi- 
cated. The military results were insignificant, be- 
cause Halleck permitted the victory to remain iso- 
lated. The most important lesson which it taught, 
and the most controlling and operative of all its effects, 
were the ideas which it planted in the mind of Grant. 
He now displayed, for the first time, that alertness of 
faculty which instantly follows out to its consequences 
the teachings of a fact, and that boldness of temper 
which adapts the policy of the future to the require- 
ments of its decree. When Frederick the Great 
discovered the fact, that a secret treaty subsisted 

1 According to Gen. Badcau, the following are the losses of both days : 
Grant's loss, including that in Buell's army, was 12,217; of these, 1,700 were 
killed, 7,495 wounded, and 3,022 missing: 2,167 of the losses were in the army 
of the Ohio. Beauregard reported a total loss of 10,697 : 1,72S killed, 8,012 
wounded, and 957 missing. 



184 LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 

between Austria, Russia, and Saxony to improve the 
first favorable opportunity to partition the Prussian 
dominion among these powers, he did not wait for 
the opportunity to arrive, but in the midst of peace, 
and without notice to any one, forthwith inundated 
Saxony with his grenadiers ; acting with as much de- 
cision upon the discovery of such an intention as if 
these powers were ah^eady prepared to execute it. 
After tlie occupation of Dresden, he finds in the 
archives of Frederick Augustus an authenticated 
copy of the treaty. This is called following up a 
fact to its logical conclusions, and governing conduct 
conformably to their behests. The fact w^hich the 
battle of Shiloh disclosed to Grant w^as, that our ene- 
mies, in spite of the rupture of their strategic line„the 
capitulation of their strongholds, and the loss of the 
semi-neutral States, evinced as much determination 
to prosecute the w^ar, and rallied as strong an army, 
as if they still held all we had regained, and still 
hugged the illusion of invincibility. The conclusion 
to which it led was, that no eclat of victor}', or 
overthrow of cities, or occupation of States, or any 
merely humiliating process, would of itself suppress 
the deeply-rooted Rebellion. The practical policy 
which it inculcated was to address future campaigns 
to the annihUatlon of its armies. From henceforth 
he determined that the former objects should only be 
pursued in subordination to the latter; and, when 
placed at the head of afiairs, the principle which 
Shiloh taught him was immediately promulged as 
one of the rules which would govern his military ad- 
ministration. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HE DEFENDS CORINTH, AND WINS THE BATTLE OF lUKA. 

[may to DECEMBER, 1863.] 

CONTEMPORARY criticism was far from doing 
justice, either to the general or his troops, who 
redeemed the first day's fight from ruin irretrievable. 
Its eye was fixed exclusively upon the six thousand 
dastards, instead of on the thirty thousand braves. 
It was not for a long time discovered that there was 
pluck enough left in the survivors of Sunday's conflict 
to renew the combat on Monday morning without 
help from Buell. The testimony I have quoted from 
Gen. Sherman's letter settles this question forever. 
Buell's of&cers dwelt, in their reports, with more unc- 
tion upon the mass of fugitives and cravens whom 
they found at the landing after the stampede from 
Prentiss's right and Sherman's left, and upon the 
evidences of defeat strewed over the field, than upon 
the heroism of Sherman clinging to the Snake with 
the grip of a Hercules, to the constancy of W. H. L. 
Wallace which death only could dishearten, the stub- 
born fidelity with which Prentiss held on to an unten- 
able position, the unwearisome fortitude with which 
during the day, and especially at its close, Hurlbut 
vanquished disaster. 

186 



18G LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

Grant was also accused by self-sufficient critics of 
selectino- a field of battle from which there was no 
retreat. It was not his own selection ; and, if it had 
been, it was the best field to be found by the expe- 
ditionary army. The malignant spirits who thrive 
by dragging down rising names, and by degrading 
established reputations, were busy Avith vile insinua- 
tion. Success, in the malignant judgment of North' 
ern disloyalty, was an all-sufficient calumniator ; and 
it joined with full-mouthed bay in any hue and cry 
raised against the victor of Donelson. This concur- 
ring clamor of ignorance, disloyalty, and jealousy, 
drags Halleck, for the first time and for the last, 
from the closet to the field ; and, by superseding 
Grant, relieves him from the responsibility, for f^ve 
months, of the most extravagant waste of money, 
valor, resources, and opportunity, wdiich the records 
of a war prodigal in this class of expenditure present. 
We have seen under Grant the results of expedi- 
tious energy ; we shall see under Halleck the effects 
of scientific procrastination. Upon the advent of 
Halleck, Grant's participation in army counsels, or in 
army movements, ceases as entirely as if he was 
buried under the crimson sward of Shiloh. He was, 
indeed, left nominally in command of the Tennessee, 
but with no more actual control over it than a drill- 
sergeant. 

Orders were not transmitted through him, but di- 
rectly to his subordinates ; and the army was so par- 
celled out between Thomas and McClernand that he 
had nobody to command in action. Regiments and 
brigades are detached, distributed, despatched, and 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 187 

• 

regulated without his orders; iu some cases, too, 
without his knowledge, and in others in defiance of 
his known and expressed wishes. He was a mere 
cipher in camp. He was never consulted about the 
conduct of the campaign; and, the only time he vol- 
unteered an opinion, was informed by Halleck, that, 
when his advice was needed, timely notice would be 
given him. He was so little in the confidence of the 
major-general or of those whom he trusted, was 
treated with so many indignities by the martinets 
who surrounded him, that all the equanimity and 
forbearance which Grant could summon were re- 
quired to enable him to endure this position of une- 
quivocal disgrace. There was no more trying period 
in the career which we have traced from his birth to 
the present juncture than the half-year which fol- 
lowed the victory of Shiloh. 

Halleck took command on the 10th of April, and 
with it was initiated the reign of the pickaxe and 
the shovel. Far be it from me to dispute the authori- 
tative military maxims which inculcate the expedi- 
ency of fortifying the camp ; but no war maxims are 
of universal application, and the general must uni- 
formly be governed by the exigences of the partic- 
ular situation. Far be it from me to disparage in- 
trenchments on all suitable occasions; but, if they 
are ever out of place, it is three days after your an- 
tagonist in the field has not only been vanquished 
but demoralized, and all that it requires for his utter 
annihilation is but a vigorous pursuit. What need 
was there for Halleck, with fifty thousand heroes at 
his beck, whose courage had been purified in such an 



188 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

• 

ordeal as Sunday's, and inspired by such a victory as 
Monday's, to sit down fortifying and intrenching in 
the face of Beauregard with but fifteen thousand dis- 
puited men, his whole army organization wrecked 
by the shxughter of officers of every grade and in 
every department ? Napoleon might as well have in- 
trenched on the field of Austerlitz, or Wellington on 
the eve of Waterloo. 

From the vast territory under his jurisdiction, 
thronged with loyal millions, Halleck had succeeded 
in rallying as superb an army of volunteers as the 
world ever beheld. A hundred and twenty thou- 
sand men appear on his field returns. He begins 
his advance towards Corinth, intrenching every night 
behind fortifications elaborate enough to stand a 
siege, and, in a region of forest and morass, constructs: 
military roads for the forward or retrograde move- 
ment of this immense army, and bridges, viaducts, 
and canals, as if he were solely employed upon the 
demonstrations of practical engineering. Meanwhile 
Beauregard — at Corinth, which is but thirty miles 
from Shiloh — piles, heap upon heap, fortifications 
equally stupendous in show, but designed merely to 
frighten an over-cautious foe, with bastions like deal, 
curtains like canvas, wooden guns on- counterfeit 
embankments, and painted muzzles frowning from 
embrasures wdiich would be shaken to pieces by the 
concussion of a good-sized fire-cracker. 

Behhid these fortifications he stood, valiant as 
Julius Caesar, throwing his gauntlet daily to Halleck, 
vaunting his readiness to meet him, spreading by his 
spies exaggerated rumors of the enormous garrison 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 189 

which manned them, and of his inexhaustible mili- 
tary resources. After six weeks of such toil — on the 
part of troops — as built the pyramids, Halleck sur- 
mounts just fifteen of the thirty miles of interval 
between himself and Beauregard. 

On the 9th of May, as it appeared by instructions 
to Bragg, subsequently captured, the wily Creole 
had perfected all hi^ plan^ for eluding the cum- 
brous Brobdignag in pursuit. On the 15th of May, 
Plalleck sends out Gen. T. W. Sherman upon a recon- • 
TioJssance towards Corinth, who reports to Halleck, 
from information obtained from prisoners, that Gen. 
Beauregard on the 14th had issued an order, " that 
all the property at Corinth, except the contents of the 
knapsacks and a certain amount of provisions, should 
be sent forthwith to Okolona." On the 20th of May, 
Beauregard's order for evacuation is dated, and by 
the 25th it is completed. 

During this period, Halleck is prodigiously slow, 
fortifying by night, engineering by day, and towards 
the 29tli of Ma}^, nearly seven weeks and a half after 
the fate of Corinth was decided by the victory of 
Shiloh, appears before its humbug fortifications ; and 
on the 30th of May, five days after the last rebel 
had left them, redoubtable Halleck issues the follow- 
ing order for battle : " There is every indication that 
the enemy will attack our left this morning, as troops 
have been moving in that direction for some time. 
It will be well to make preparation to send as many 
of the reserves as can be spared, of the right wing, 
in that direction, as soon as an attack is made in 
force. At any rate, be prepared for an order to that 



190 LIFE OF GENERAIi GRANT. 

effect." The anticipated engagement, I need not 
say, did not come off. Corintii succumbed to Hal- 
leek's irresistible array without a blow. The works 
were a mere mockery. Unmolested, upwards of a 
hundred legions marched through the silent bastions, 
the naked works; and the impotence of the defences 
convinced every old maid in the army, that a vigor- 
ous jump would have demolished both fortifications 
and garrison. 

Beauregard's forces retreat in such a manner as 
to invite pursuit. The roads are in fine condition. 
Water abounds ; the rivulets ripple with seductive 
murmur. The troops yearn for the order, '■ Forwar<^!" 
Deserters are coming in daily, reporting the inability 
of the eneni}^ to endure a cavalry charge. But 
nothing can dissipate Halleck's chronic apprehension 
of a rebel avalanche. Buell and Pope finally march 
out in pursuit, and remain for two days in an in- 
trenched line of battle, seventy thousand strong. 
Beauregard eludes all their vigilance, and by feints, 
rear-guards, and sham attacks, dodges by unmolested. 
Buell and Pope march back again to camp, where 
Gen. Grant had been left, in order to humiliate him. 
The unabridged history of Halleck's only' campaign 
is written in an old couplet, too familiar and stale to 
be quoted. I leave this discreditable record without 
a comment. If its parallel in imbecility is to be 
found in the voluminous records of war, I hope the 
instance will be presented. 

The great army which Halleck had concentrated 
for a great purpose is speedily broken into fragments. 
Pope is sent to Virginia to conduct the campaign 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAll ? 191 

■which terminated with the second defeat at Bull 
Run. Halleck, his brow decked with Corinthian 
laurel, is ordered to Washington to supersede Mc- 
Clellan in the chief command of the army. Before 
retiring, however, he insults Grant once more by 
offering to one of his quartermasters the chieftain- 
ship of the Army of the Tennessee ; but, as the 
overture is declined, Grant is left at Corinth in 
command of it, depleted by the withdrawal of four 
great divisions to support the movements of Buell. 

The transfer of Halleck to Washington enlarged not 
Grant's jurisdiction, but relieved him from a minute 
and pragmatical supervision. He finds himself about 
the middle of July in supreme command at Corinth, 
with four divisions under him, — Sherman's, Rose- 
crans's, Ord's, and Hurlbut's. It therefore becomes 
necessary to glance for a moment at the strategical 
relation of his new position to the territory occupied 
by the two belligerents. 

In the first place, Corinth is on the Mobile and 
Columbus Railroad, which he must hold from Corinth 
to its northern terminus on the Mississippi ; because 
Columbus is now his base of supplies. To the south 
this road is entirely under rebel control, and therefore 
invites hostile inroads from that direction. 

In the second place, dt Corinth the Mobile Road 
intersects the Charleston and Memphis Railroad ; and 
Grant must hold this road up to Memphis, for that 
city is now under his command, and held by Gen. 
Sherman. To the east, it stretches through all the 
Gulf States, up to the very citadel of Rebellion in 
South Carolina, and serves as the convenient channel 



192 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

for the influx upon him of rebel armies from that 
direction. 

In the third place, within striking distance upon 
his left, is Bolivar, upon the Mississippi Central, which 
penetrates the State after which it is named. I 
should also note that Jackson, a few miles north of 
Corinth, is at the junction of the Mississippi Central 
with the Mobile and Columbus. 

It is therefore apparent that Jackson and Bolivar 
must both be occupied as the keys of Corinth, Mem- 
phis, and Columbus, and as essential safeguards of 
the war defensive. 

With excellent judgment, the rebel authorities have 
committed to Price and Van Dorn the control of 
operations against Corinth ; for they were both adepts 
in the partisan warfare which consists in suddenly 
extemporizing an army, springing on the most ex- 
posed post of a long line, and, when foiled, scattering 
over the country, or retreating to an inaccessible wild. 
Both know that there is no reason to fear offensive 
movements from Grant ; for, although they may not 
be aware of the orders which restrain him, they can 
see with their eyes that his legs are tethered by 
the exigences of his situation. The idea which most 
vividly describes the uncomfortable quarters of 
Grant, for the next three months, is to consider him in 
a hornet's nest, which the venomous insects, both in- 
side and outside, are endeavoring to recapture. When 
he is unguarded, they swarm around him with stings 
innumerable ; when he is prepared to strike, they 
vanish into air. After repeated petty annoyances, 
he becomes aware, about the 1st of September, that 



WBfAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 193 

two swarms are demonstrating against him in force. 
With the control of the Mississippi Central, Van 
Dorn is threatening him from the south ; and Price, 
at the east, has seized the Charleston Road at luka. 
Grant instantly discerns his peril, and determines to 
capture the swarm at luka, before it can form a 
junction with the swarm from the south. He orders 
Eosecrans to point the head of his division eastward, 
and, stealing stealthily through the woods which 
border the Charleston Railroad on the south, to wheel 
suddenly to the north when he reaches the longitude 
of luka, and, spreading his wings, seize Fulton — a 
station on the road in the rear of luka — with the 
one, and directly assault luka from the south with 
the other. 

Having started Rosecrans with nine thousand men 
upon the execution of this manoeuvre, he calls in 
Ord's division of eight thousand men, and rushes 
them out on a railroad train to Burnsville, within 
easy distance, upon the east of luka, and retains the 
empty cars there, to return this corps to Corinth in 
case Van Dorn should attack during his absence. 
Grant is at Burnsville, where he can conveniently 
supervise the intended operations of both divisions. 

On the 18th he pushes forward Ord against luka; 
because, on the 18th, Rosecrans informs him that he 
will close upon luka from the south, and it is not until 
midnight of the same day that he sends Grant word 
that he is still twenty miles from luka. Grant is forced 
by this information to suddenly change his plans, 
and to direct Ord to withhold his assault until he hears 
the guns of Rosecrans co-operating from the south. 

13 



194 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

Meanwhile Rosecrans has imprudently permitted a 
rebel gur^-eon, by the name of Burton, to hang about 
his headquarters and secure his confidence, who upon 
the 19tli carries to Price all the details of Rosecrans's 
command, and also discloses the intention to capture 
Fulton in the rebels' rear, and cut off the retreat. 
Price, therefore, forthwith commences preparations for 
the evacuation of luka, and, massing his forces, sallies 
out southward, and lies in ambuscade to receive 
Rosecrans. Late on the afternoon of the 19th, Rose- 
crang's leading brigade is met b}^ an ambush several 
miles south of luka ; and for five miles its advance 
is contested by skirmishers and sharpshooters, posted 
in every cover. Within about two miles of luka, 
Gen. Hamilton, who commands the advance, finds the 
enemy's front strongly posted in a ravine, which 
here cuts the road transversely, with a part of his 
line also behind the crest of an adjoining hill. A sharp 
engagement ensues, distinguished by the stubbornness 
of our assault against heavy odds, — ensconced in a 
natural trench, presenting but a narrow front, en- 
tirely controlled by artillery upon the hill ; while the 
nature of the ground permits Hamilton to use but 
a single battery. After a determined struggle, Price 
is driven from his position as darkness comes on; 
and the victors bivouac upon the battle-ground. The 
columns which Grant directs Rosecrans to detach 
for the purpose of strildng the railroad at Fulton, 
for reasons which were never explained, failed to 
reach their destination. 

Under the protection of the night. Price retreats 
fiom the battle-field to the cars which are awaiting 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 195 

him upon the Charleston Road, and speedily places 
his troops beyond reach of pursuers. The wind 
blew strongly from the north during the afternoon ; 
and the first information which Ord receives of the 
action at the south was communicated to him by 
the negroes. He immediately pushes into luka, to 
discover that Grant's device for hiving one swarm 
* of the hornets is foiled by the neglect of an impor- 
tant order. The result of the battle was only a 
temporary check upon the concerted movement of 
Price and Van Dorn ; for, by circuitous routes, — 
always at their command, — a junction is speedily 
effected. 

On the 23d of September, Grant moves his head- 
quarters to Jackson, the geographical centre of his 
command. The disastrous campaigns of the east are 
daily withdrawing detachments from his feeble force ; 
and, early in October, he sends a telegram to Wash- 
ington, which, coming from one habitually undemon- 
strative and uncomplaining, indicates no small degree 
of anxiety. "My position is precarious," he says; 
" but I hope to get out of it all right." At this 
juncture. Price and Van Dorn, with an overwhelm- 
ing array, are threatening every post under his pro- 
tection ; and his apprehensions are the more lively 
because he cannot divine which of all the points 
within their reach will be the object of attack. He 
taxes his utmost cunning to ascertain their aim, until, 
fmally, a change in their cavalry cantonment, which 
would have been entirely unnoticed by an inexperi- 
enced eye, reveals to him that Corinth is their quarry. 
Rosecrans is forthwith directed to call in all his out- 



196 LIFE OF GENERAL GEA2s"T. 

posts, and McPlierson is sent to re-enforce him with 
his brigade. Ilurlbut and Ord are hurried up from 
BoUvar, to act as emergences may require ; but, 
b(^fore the re-enforcements reach Corinth, the enemy 
has partially invested it. 

The moment Grant was placed in command of Cor- 
inth, he dismantled that immense range of fortifica- 
tions which Beauregard had raised to disguise his real 
weakness, and constructed substantial works nearer the 
town, and capable of being defended by a small gar- 
rison. The wisdom of this precaution was now to be 
demonstrated ; for Rosecrans, having been defeated in 
an attempt to raise the investment, is assailed on the 
4th of October by the enemy, thirty-eight thousand 
strong. It is no mere feint upon the part of Price 
and Van Dorn ; never did they evince more impetu- 
osity and determination than in this struggle to tear 
from the talons of Grant their ancient nest. They 
charge with heavy columns, once and again and still 
again, upon works garnished with artillery, and gar- 
risoned by nineteen thousand soldiers. They storm 
in the teeth of devastating batteries. They even pene- 
trate the j:own, and shake for an instant our waver- 
ing troops, who are speedily rallied by Rosecrans in 
person. It was the enfilading fire of the interior 
forts which at this crisis saved Corinth from destruc- 
tion. McPherson arrives during the action, and, by 
a brilliant cUtoxir, brings up his brigade on Rose- 
crans's right ; but the elan and will of the assailants 
are already dashed. By eleven o'clock they are not 
only repulsed, but in disorderly rout, and, if Rose- 
crans had followed them with energy, would have 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 197 

been exterminated. They are, however, fortunately 
struck on the flank by Hurlbut, and Ord, at the 
Hatchie; and the punishment which they received 
relieved the district forever from the inroads of Price 
and Van Dorn. 

After the battle of luka and Corinth, Grant's mili- 
tary jurisdiction was amplified by the command of 
the Department of the Tennessee, comprehending 
Cairo, the forts he had captured, all ' Kentucky and 
Tennessee west of the Tennessee River, and Northern 
Mississippi. His enterprising spirit immediately con- 
ceives the idea of opening the great river by the 
reduction of Yicksburg. As early as the 25th of 
October, he submitted a proposition to the secretary 
of war, which contemplated an advance upon that 
"•' barred gateway " by means of the Mississippi Cen- 
tral, with a co-operating expedition upon the Missis- 
sippi Kiver. The execution of this project involved 
the abandonment of Corinth, and was, of course, too 
repugnant to Halleck's conservative temperament to 
receive his immediate assent; but, after various delays, 
the plan, with some amendments, was authorized, but 
was destined to be retarded by a complication of a 
different nature. 

The baton of a brigadier was placed in the hands 
of John A. McClernand, as a recognition of political 
merit and inliaence ; and he carried with him into the 
field more of the tactics of the adroit politician than 
the skilful commander. As he had found "bun- 
combe " serviceable in a political campaign, he saw 
no reason why it should be abjured on the miHtary 
arena ; and, as he had been obliged to blow his own 



198 lilFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

trumpet in the canvass, he did not scorn the same duty 
in the camp. All that he knew of the art of war had 
been learned in eighteen months, and in three en- 
gagements. With great skill, at Belmont, he had 
electioneered his brigade into action ; at Donelson, he 
remained in obscurity after Pillow had rolled up his 
division ; and at Shiloh, he had been content, during 
the first day, to hang on the skirts of Sherman, and 
during the second to play the conservative role of a 
reserve. He was now, in his own judgment, capable 
of leading an expedition, or, at all events, was tired 
of " furnishing brains " to the Army of the Tennes- 
see, and wished to be the actual, as well as the real 
head of the concern ; nor did our experience of edu- 
cated officers render such aspirations upon the part 
of any military fledgling preposterous. He went to 
Washington, and by the arts of political legerdemain, 
of which he was a master, almost persuaded the mind 
of the president — susceptible to such influences — 
to install him in command, over the head of Grant. 
It is to the credit of Halleck that in this emxcrgency 
he. stood by his subordinate. AVhatever were his 
faults, he was too much of a soldier to permit politi- 
cal combinations to derange the plans and control 
the administration of the army, and he resisted the 
present intrigue" with all his might and with all- his 
resoui-ces. But, as was the v/ont of the president in 
such dilemmas, he compromised the rival pretensions, 
by refusing to interfere with the projects of Grant, 
but authorized McClernand, when sufficient troops 
were concentrated at Memphis for the prospective 
operations of the commander of the district, to or- 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 199 

ganize an expedition against Vicksburg, and to open 
the navigation of the Mississippi. 

Grant had seized Grand Junction, which controlled 
the Mississippi Central, while he was waiting for au- 
thority from Washington to advance down the road ; 
and it was not until the 12th of November that he 
received the information that he was sufficient master 
of his own troops to justify the undertaking, and 
knew nothing up to this time, except by current gos- 
sip, of any authority issued to McClernand. He im- 
mediately puts his troops in motion, occupies Holly 
Springs, drives Pemberton from his intrenchments 
behind the Tallahatchie, and, having swept the Mis- 
sissippi Central clear of all foes, down to Grenada, 
establishes his headquarters at Oxford, twenty-eight 
miles below Holly Springs, on the 8th of December. 
He now finds that Pemberton is declining battle, and 
merely luring him on to the Vicksburg intrenchments. 
He therefore prepares forthwith to launch the river 
expedition. It was his intention to intrust this 
movement to Sherman alone; and from Oxford he 
issues instructions to him — still at Memphis — "to, as- 
sume command of all troops at Memphis, and of Gen. 
Curtis's force east of the Mississippi, and, as soon as 
possible, move with them down the river, and, with 
the co-operation of the gunboat fleet under the 
command of Flag-officer Porter, proceed to the re- 
duction of Vicksburg in such manner as circum- 
stances and your own judgment may dictate. I will 
hold the forces here," he adds, " in readiness to co- 
operate with you, in such a manner as the movements 
of the enemy may make necessary." We have here 



200 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the unabridged plan of the campaign, and the expla- 
nation of all subsequent movements up to its con- 
clusion. 

While he remains at Oxford, the telegrams of 
Grant indicate two main causes of anxiet}*, — the 
hazard of being bereft of supplies, which was daily 
increased the farther he removed from his base ; and 
the apprehension that some political appointee will 
be foisted upon him as chief subordinate in place 
of Sherman. The former danger was to some extent 
alleviated by establishing at Holly Springs an auxili- 
ary depot; but the latter was speedily realized by 
a telegram from Halleck, which said, '■ It is the wish 
of the president that Gen. McClernand's corps shall 
constitute a part of the river expedition, and that 
he shall have the immediate command under your * 
direction'' 

There is no doubt that Halleck and Grant had 
been in hearty alliance for weeks to defeat executive 
interference with the freedom of choice ; that the 
former, while he was aware that the president had 
beeji forced to yield to the pressure of McClernand's 
political friends, had, with pardonable indiscretion, 
revealed to Grant that Mr. Lincoln might indiqate a 
separate commander, adding significantly, " Sherman 
would be my choice as chief under you;" and that 
Grant, with more than habitual speed, had hurried 
Sherman's preparations, that the transports might be 
under way before any unwelcome order should be re- 
ceived from Washington. But there is nothing to 
do now but to bend to the mandate of the com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and the navy; and 



WHAT BID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 201 

Grant telegraphs to McClernand, who was at Spring- 
field, that he had been directed by the general-in- 
chief, "to divide the force intended for the river 
expedition into four army corps, and to assign to him 
the command of one ; and informing him, moreover, 
that he would find instructions at Memphis, which 
would be turned over to him by General Sherman." 

An unexpected calamity now disconcerted his own 
co-operating movements. Grant, bear in mind, is 
still at Oxford, twenty-four miles below Holly Springs; 
and McPherson's brigade is on the Tallahatchie, still 
farther in advance. Col. Murphy, of the Eighth 
Wisconsin Volunteers, had been left in command of 
the depot at Holly Springs, upon which the army 
relied for food and munitions of war ; and, with that 
crassa negligentia which would raise a presumption 
of criminal complicity with the enemy, both by 
neglect of previous preparation for its security, and 
by the neglect of ordinary precaution of guards and 
outposts at the time of attack, permitted Van Dorn, 
at the head of a mere cavalry squadron, to capture 
this important post and to destroy all its valuable 
stores, without even striking a blow in its defence, or 
scarcely rising from his couch. He was cashiered for 
the crime, which was not a tithe of his deserts. About 
the same time, Forrest, the notorious raider of West 
Tennessee, had broken up at Jackson the railroad to 
Columbus ; and, by these two blows. Grant was entirely 
cut off from his main and subsidiary base of supplies. 

Now, if Grant had been the mere drilled tactician 
who governs himself absolutely by military theories 
and precedents, he would have forthwith surrendered 



202 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

his army ; for theoretical starvation was the corollary 
of these two misfortunes. The expedient of main- 
taining an army with its regular communication 
severed is only, with rare exceptions, resorted to 
hut by the vanquished, and is of itself a confession 
of defeat. Grant is no slave of military rule and 
and routine He is both a practical and theoretical 
soldier, and employs the maxims of his art only 
when they are imperious ; but draws laws from the 
fertilit}^ of his own invention in situations which are 
exceptions to ordinary rules. He meets unprece- 
dented circumstances by unprecedented measures. 
He has no thought of surrender, but throws himself 
on the country for food. For more than a week, he 
has no communication with the North ; for two weeks, 
he is bereft of all regular supplies. Non-combatant 
rebels may suffer, but the soldiers must be fed. He 
subsists an army of thirty thousand men on their 
well-stocked storehouses and granaries ; he eats out 
of house and home fifteen square miles of country, 
and, in the language of Mrs. Quickly to Sir John 
FalstafT, " puts all its substance " in the consuming 
maw^ of his thirty legions. In this adversity, which 
seemed tantamount to ruin, he first conceives the 
practicability of the " movable column " which upon 
such a scale of grandeur was subsequently let loose 
upon the waning Rebellion. Gen. Badeau affirms, 
that, while discussing this campaign with Gen. Grant, 
he had frequently heard him say, "If I had known 
at its inception what I learned during its prosecu- 
tion, that thirty regiments could be easily fed upon 
the enemy's country, I would have ^nished on to the 
rear of Vicksburg, and captured the place." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CITIL WAR? 203 

The experiment, however, of subsisting upon the 
enemy was too novel at the time, and too repugnant 
to the cautions of the miUtary art, to justify Grant 
in prosecuting his advance, or retaining his present 
positions, after his communications were severed. He 
could not incur the responsibility " of burning his 
ships," and throwing himself into the midst of the 
foe. He therefore retraces his march of sixty miles, 
and establishes himself at Grand Junction until 
Forrest is driven back to his hiding-place ; and, having 
again opened connection with Columbus, he again 
establishes his headquarters at Holly Springs, again 
pushes on h^s advance to the Tallahatchie before 
Christmas of 1862. 

It has been repeatedly asked, Why did not Gen. 
Grant confide entirely to a river movement against 
Vicksburg? why did he incur the risks of a land 
approach ? It is a sufficient answer to say, that, in 
such a hazardous business as war, it is never wise to 
invest all your fortune in a single venture ; and that 
double expedients are frequently employed by the 
great exemplifiers of the art, for the accomplishment 
of the same end ; and that, if a choice was to be made 
between the two lines of attack, military experts 
affirm, that, even after the Holly Springs disaster^ the 
Mississippi Central was the one to which preference 
should be given. But, in addition to this, he knew 
that Pemberton was on the Tallahatchie at the head 
of an army, which he preferred to encounter in the 
open field, instead of behind the fortifications of 
Vicksburg ; and I have already shown, that, after the 
battle of Shilohr, it became a controlling maxim of 



204 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAXT. 

Grant's strategy to address his campaigns to the " an- 
nihilation of the enemy's army," with the assured 
prospect that every stronghold and intrenched posi- 
tion would Ml when this feat was accomplished. In 
this very campaign, as soon as he discovers that 
Pemberton abandons the strong • lines behind the 
Tallahatchie without accepting battle, he gives a 
peremptory order "to Sherman to advance by the 
river, that the enemy, who declines to fight in the 
field, shall not be left in immunity upon the bhiflfs 
of Vicksburg. 

Behold, then. Grant on the 25th of December at 
Holly Springs, with McPherson, whose military gen- 
ius is rapidly culminating, advanced to the line of the 
Tallahatchie, to arrest the attention of Pemberton, 
and divert him, if possible, from massing upon Sher- 
man, whose expedition down the river I must now 
briefly follow. 

The rupture of communications, which happened 
immediately after Grant had received the command 
of the president to give to McClernand the chief 
place under him in the control of the river move- 
ment, although it had not prevented Grant from giv- 
ing to McClernand the information, had prevented 
the transmission of an order to Sherman to recognize 
McClernand as his superior. For, during the period 
of non-intorcouse with Memphis, Sherman had em- 
barked with thirty thousand men, and had receiv- 
ed aboard his transports twelve thousand more at 
Helena, and had reached Milliken's Bend, on the 
Arkansas shore^ twenty miles above Vicksburg, the 
day after Grant had re-occupied Holly Springs. 



WHAT DID HE DO IJST THE CIVIL WAR ? £05 

The few lines I shall devote to Sherman's unsuc- 
cessful assault of the 27th, 28th, and 29th of Decem- 
ber demands from me no elaborate sketch, either of 
the topography or defences of the rebels' strong- 
hold. I have merely to notice, that, although the 
Mississippi River bends sharply to the east at Yicks- 
burg, the line of bluffs upon which it stands, and 
which are essential elements of its strength, do not 
participate in the deflections of the stream, but con- 
tinue along on their course parallel to the western 
bank of the Yazoo, where they become, and are called, 
"Walnut Hills." The Yazoo enters the Mississippi 
River nine miles above Yicksburg. Between the 
Yazoo and these bluffs prolonged, there is a kind of 
delta, half-inundated, commanded by them, penetrated 
by bayous, besprinkled with swamps, — a tangled 
thicket of water-loving plants, which flourish so wild- 
ly at the mouths of tropical rivers, — where artillery 
cannot operate at all, and infantry move only on the 
narrow embankments, which are in these submerged 
fields what cow-paths are in our Northern woods. 

Sherman went up the Yazoo, disembarked his troops 
in the forlorn and dismal slough which I have just 
etched, penetrated it with his infantry, against the 
artillery on the Walnut Hills, and rifle-pits also, as he 
approached the Vicksburg bluffs, and succeeded in 
reaching the solid declivities of the Vicksburg hfll, 
and established himself within the rebel lines under 
the superior fortifications upon the eminence ! What 
more could mortal soldier do? His failure to carry 
the town resulted from no want of men, for he could 
not use half of his force ; from no want of batteries, 



206 LIFE OF GENERAL GRAXT. 

because he could not use them at all; from no want 
of judgment in selecting the point of attack, for he 
chose the onl}' point assailable ; from no Avant either 
of pluck or of will, in officers or men, because they 
achieved all that human resolution or courage can do ; 
but simply because Yicksburg is just as impregnable 
to mere assault as the rock of Gibraltar. The fault, 
if any fault there be, lies at their door who expected 
impossibilities throughout this war: the blame, if 
blame there be, lay in that infatuation and maze of 
the public mind, which, at this juncture of our affairs, 
exacted from " bipeds without feathers " the feats of 
birds. After withdrawing his column in good order 
and in good spirits, the command of the president 
reached Sherman, superseding him by McClernand. 
lie receives it with the serene brow of a Belisarius. 
Although the order had been issued months prior to 
the assault, it was construed by the charitable home- 
guards as a rebuke to Sherman. 

While the command was. waitino; for additional 
orders from Grant, Sherman induced his superior, 
McClernand, to attack Arkansas Post, far up the 
Arkansas River. With the assistance of a bombard- 
ment from Porter's fleet, the attack proved successful ; 
and the fort, with live thousand prisoners and seven- 
teen guns, capitulated. 

On the 4th of January, 1862, Grant receives the 
information of Sherman's failure to carry Vicksburg. 
The controlling reasons which instigated the advance 
by the Mississippi Central no longer exist. Pember- 
ton evinces only a disposition to draw him from his 
base ; and, as Grant moves forward, he falls back to 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 207 

tlie safe citadel upon the bluffs. " His army is not to 
be annihilated in the field," but must be captured in 
garrison. Diversion in Sherman's favor is no longer 
needed, for Sherman has reported that Vicksburg can 
only be mastered by siege. Grant, therefore, gives 
the order to withdraw from the Tallahatchie. The 
enormous mounds of stores of every description are 
moved with the army, and it was not imtil the 10th 
of January that Grant again established himself at 
Memphis. 

Both the land and river expeditions are failures ! 
Vicksburg, on the bluff, still stands in grim and ma- 
jestic defiance of our flag, barricading the natural 
highway to the sea of an area of territory so im- 
mense that it can only be measured by the great 
circles of the globe, paralyzing in a measure its fifty- 
seven navigable tributaries, preserving the territorial 
cohesion of the Gulf and trans-Mississippi States of 
the Confederacy, constraining the grandest water- 
course on the continent to be the* accomplice of trea- 
son, and forcing its mighty channel to contribute to 
the martial and financial strength of Rebellion. In 
this view the campaign was a failure, but in another 
view it was a success. "Out of the nettle danger, we 
plucked the flower safety." It planted the seeds of 
victory, and pointed out the way in Avhich it could be 
won. It strangled all expedients to carry Vicksburg 
by mere storm; it demonstrated that the reguLir 
approaches of a siege were the only road to its con- 
quest, and inspired one man with strength and vol- 
ume enough of will to travel that road to the end. 
While Pemberton is jubilant over our defeat both 



208 LirE OF GEKEBAL GEANT. 

upon river and upon land, the parallels, bastions, and 
batterie^'hich will demolish it are already erected 
and planted in the mind of Grant. While McClernand 
is wailing over faihn^e, Grant is writing him, "If there 
are men enough in the West, Vicksburg will fall." 

SUMMARY. 

I have eliminated from four operations against the 
enemy, through which I have already traced Grant, 
four maxims, which his experience in this war had 
mculcated respecting the mode in which it should be 
fought ; and, as these maxims essentially control and 
ilhistrate his future military policy, I will here re- 
capitulate them : — 

BELMONT. 

I. When both belligerents are undisciplined, noth- 
ing is gained by a procrastinating drill ; because the 
enemy improves as fast as yourself, and the manifold 
advantages of promptness are sacrificed. 

DONELSON AND SHILOH. 

n. In a hotly-contested action, when it appears 
that both parties are shocked, the one which first at- 
tacks vigorously is sure to win. 

AFTER SmLOH. 

III. Campaigns in this war should be addressed 
chiefly to the annihilation of the enemy's army, rather 
than to the mere capture of his strongholds, or the 
mere occupation of his territory. 

HOLLY SPRINGS. 

IV. Tlie " movable column " can be safely and 
successfully employed. 



CHAPTER X. 

HE BESIEGES VICKSBURG. 
[January to May, 1864.] 

AS you descend the Mississippi from Memphis in 
the season of the spring freshet, you are at 
every step impressed with the idea, that the mighty 
stream is too big for its basin, and that its pent-up 
current is continually struggling for relief You are 
also seized with the thought, that the alluvial region 
through which it flows is favoring this effort ; for it 
has been described with poetic license, but with much 
truth, as " neither sea nor strand." The unsubstan- 
tial soil presents but a feeble obstacle to the tortuous 
inclination of the torrent. It therefore winds through 
the yielding morass wherever it listeth, abandoning 
its old channels for new, breaking out into innumera- 
ble side reservoirs and bayous, and, as it approaches 
its mouth, incessantly seeking additional outlets to 
the gulf 

As you approach its junction with the Yazoo, you 
become aware that the river is about to indulge in 
one of its serpentine freaks. The channel reverses 
its southerly course, and, turning suddenly to the 
north-east, forms an elongated horseshoe ; and, after 

14 209 



210 LIFE OF GEXEPv^U. GEAXT. 

you have rounded the toe, and steamed about a third 
of the way to the down-stream heel, you find on the 
eastern bank the fortifications of Vicksburg. The 
peninsula formed on the Louisiana shore by this 
sharp curve is about two miles in breadth and three 
and a half miles long. 

If the topographical feature I have thus indicated 
were the sole military advantage of Vicksburg, it 
would be merely a favorable sight for planting a 
water battery, to control the river for several miles, 
and it might be easily approached from the north, 
and turned or captured. But it possesses two other 
natural advantages of situation, which fairly daunt 
the boldest engineer who is devising approaches to 
it from the north. The Yazoo, although contempti- 
ble in size when contrasted with the parent stream, 
yet belongs to the same class with the Hudson and 
Connecticut : it not only enters the Mississippi at the 
toe of the horse-shoe, but overspreads fifteen square 
miles with that complicated network of mouths, 
swamps, bayous, and jungles, which distinguish the 
deltas of this abnormal region, and would of itself 
constitute no contemptible obstacle to an approach 
to Vicksburff from the north. The strongrest natural 
advantage of the place remains to be noticed. A 
range of highlands, from two to three hundred feet 
in height, start at Ilaine's Bluff, on the banks of the 
Yazoo, twelve miles above Vicksburg, and, running 
southward parallel to its channel, impinge on the 
Mississippi at Vicksburg, hug the river bend closely 
where the city lies, and extend to Warrenton on the 
Mississippi, seven miles below the stronghold. For 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 211 

nearly twenty miles tliey present a precipitous ridge 
which commands at every point the Yazoo and the 
Mississippi, and also affords a rugged, terraced, and 
controlling situation for Vicksburg itself, two hundred 
feet above the water's edge. Such are the natural 
advantages of this " barred gateway." 

What nature has left undone, to present here to 
the assailant a task of unparalleled difficulty, the 
genius of military art has completed. Haine's Bluff 
and Warrenton constitute the extreme ridit and left 
of the enemy's line, and are as impregnable to mere 
assault as the principal fortress. Upon them has 
been lavished all the ingenuity of the engineer, and 
a superabundance of superb modern ordnance. If 
there happens to be, at any point of this long range 
of ridge, a narrow strip of alluvial between the river 
and its base, which may offer a foothold to a storm- 
ing party, it is furnished with line within line of rifle- 
pits, which lender it entirely untenable. In addition 
to the batteries on every available position upon both 
of its expanded wings, Vicksburg itself presents to 
the river the plunging fire of twenty-eight heavy 
guns, posted at such a height upon the cliff that no 
cannon afloat can be raised to a sufficient elevation 
to disturb them ; and, that its command of the channel 
may be absolutely despotic, a platform for a water 
battery is placed at the base, while every terrace of 
the facing acclivity is provided with guns to sweep 
the river at every conceivable angle. 

On the 30th of January, Grant finds himself at 
Milliken's Bend, facing his enormous task. He has 
with him an army of fifty thousand men, in four 



212 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

grand army corps, commanded respectively by Mc- 
Clernand, Sherman, Hurlbut, and McPherson. The 
military characteristics of these four leaders are al- 
ready fiimiliar to the reader, and the qualities 
of their principal subordinates will appear at a 
later period of the campaign. Hurlbut is left at 
La Grange, with a part of his division, to protect 
communications. 

The first problem presented to Grant is to secure 
a lodo-mcnt on the eastern acclivities in the rear of 
Vicksburg, and we must remember that during Feb- 
ruary and March he is solely endeavoring to accom- 
plish this by a northern approach. I propose now to 
describe tjie gigantic enterprises which he undertook 
for the purpose of achieving this object, involving of 
themselves an amount of labor, hardship, and endur- 
ance which would have daunted the most energetic 
will in the world. They were of sufficient grandeur 
to stir the mummies of the extinct race which built 
the Pyramids, or agitate the ashes of the defunct Per- 
sians who tunnelled Mount Athos and bridged the 
Hellespont. They were all deeds for — 

" Giants 'of mighty bone and bold emprise." 
CANAL. 

The first step towards the solution of the problem 
is to remodel a physical feature of the globe itself, 
by turning the channel of its grandest river. The 
tendency of the Mississippi to take short cuts to the 
Gulf suggested the undertaking; and it had been 
commenced the previous summer by a detachment 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 213 

of Gen. Butler's army, from the Department of the 
Gulf I have already directed attention to the horse- 
shoe bend which the channel makes in order to in- 
vest Vicksburg with full command of its course. The 
scheme now in hand was to dig a canal from heel to 
heel, convert the peninsula formed by the curve into 
an island, and thus isolate Vicksburg, and neutralize 
its control of the navigable current. It was more fasci- 
nating to the imagination of a civilian than a soldier, 
and was prosecuted in deference to the express wishes 
of the president, although Grant had assured Halleck, 
early in February, that the exit of the canal into the 
Mississippi was under the control of the Warrenton 
Bluffs. The excavation here in the summer of 18G2 
had not penetrated through the alluvium to the crumb- 
ling strata of sand which underlies it, and therefore the 
water, which passed through it with volume and force, 
had succeeded neither in enlarging nor deepening the 
new channel. Grant's efforts are chiefly directed to 
remedies for this infirmity, by the use of dredging 
machines, and the construction of what are denomi- 
nated wings, by engineers, placed in the river above, 
and designed to compel a greater mass of water to 
follow the new course he was endeavoring to create. 
Grant continues to proclaim it an abortion in all his 
despatches to Washington. Four . thousand troops, 
with auxiliaiy contrabands, were for six weeks em- 
ployed upon this labor, and at one time fallacious 
hopes were entertained of its success : but the current 
proved too mighty to be mastered by man; and on the 
8th of March a freshet broke through the dam at its 
mouth, and a raging torrent ^Doured into the canal, not 



214 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

to seek an outlet at its lower orifice, but to devastate 
the levees at its side and submerge the peninsula. 
Upon the subsidence of the flood, it could only be 
used for the passage of small boats. Thus, after 
human toil almost commensurate with a primordial 
force of nature, the first expedient for reaching the 
rear of Vicksburg is a failure. 

LAKE PROVIDENCE. 

Simultaneous with the prosecution of the canal 
project, another scheme for turning the channel of 
the Mississippi, of still grander scope and proportion, 
was employing the superfluous troops. About thirty 
miles above Milliken's Bend, where our army is en- 
camped, is Lake Providence, on the Louisiana shore. 
It is undoubtedly the relic of some antique channel 
of the Mississippi, when upon some primitive excur- 
sion in this direction. By means of the Baxter and 
Macon Bayous and the Washita and Tensas Rivers, 
the lake communicates with the Red Rivcr, which 
enters the Mississippi scores of miles below Vicks- 
burg, and below Port Hudson. By this inner pas- 
sage also, the Atchafalaya may be reached, which 
many presume to have been the original way by 
which the Father of Waters reached the Gulf It was 
hoped, that, in an extremity, the whole of the Missis- 
sippi might be turned into this abandoned bed, and 
our transports pass below Vicksburg, in contempt of 
its batteries, and reach the coveted rear from the 
south. A canal was dug which turned Lake Provi- 
dence into the bayous. McPherson's brigade was 
employed for several weeks in opening this commu- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 215 

nication. But Baxter Bayou proved to be so encum- 
bered with snags and timber, and so tortuous in its 
course, that it could be made navigable only for 
steamers of the lightest draught. This expedient for 
gaining siege-ground to the rear of the fortifications 
is relinquished about the same time as the canal. 

THE YAZOO PASS. 

Grant is still fighting Nature to reach the eastern 
face of the stronghold. At the same time he* was 
attempting to channel across the peninsula, and to 
open an interior avenue to the Red River by the way 
of Lake Providence, he detached Col. Wilson, of his 
staff, to re-open the Yazoo Pass. A hundred miles 
above Vicksburg, on the Mississippi bank of the river, 
is Moon Lake, another of the deposits which the great 
river has left behind in its wanderings. This lake, 
by means of the Cold Water and the Tallahatchie, 
which are its outlets, formed in olden time a circuit- 
ous channel by which trading schooners sailed from 
the Mississippi to the Yazoo. But as the inducement 
which the lake offered to its waters to flow in this 
direction exposed valuable plantations to inundation, 
the State of Mississippi had built substantial levees 
between the river and the lake. Colonel Wilson 
blows them up by a mine, and makes a crevasse which 
would admit the largest steamers into Moon Lake. But 
the rebels were wide awake, and across its outlet 
erected enormous barricades of timber ; all of which 
with vast toil were removed by the troops, and the 
lower Tallahatchie finally reached. A mosquito fleet, 
escorted by two gunboats, received here forty-five 



216 LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 

liundrecl troops, under Gen. Ross ; which, after a ser- 
pentine course of two hundred and fifty miles, reached 
the town of Greenwood, where the confluence of the 
two streams formed the Yazoo. Here Pemberton had 
erected a fort commanding the approach, and so in- 
trenched in bogs that to storm it is no easy task. An 
attempt to carry it proved unavaiHng ; and, as re- 
enforcements were being hurried up from Yicksburg 
by interior lines, it was feared that Ross would be 
captured before supports could reach him by our cir- 
cumambient path. He eventually escaped, and this 
project of reaching the rear of Vicksburg failed. 

Steele's bayou. 
Steele's Bayou and Muddy Bayou enter the Missis- 
sippi about seven miles above the mouth of the 
Yazoo, and communicate directly with that sub- 
merged jungle where Sherman disembarked on the 
2Tth of December for his unsuccessful assault. On 
the 16th of March, Sherman, with a brigade of troops, 
and Porter, with five iron-clads and four mortar-boats, 
attempt to reach that gloomy lagoon, for the double 
purpose of creating a diversion in favor of Ross, and 
finding a practicable passage into the Yazoo, which 
shall evade the batteries on Haine's Bluff. It is the 
last expedient, at our command, for reaching dry land 
in the rear of Yicksburg. A participator in the expe- 
dition thus delineates one of the bayous : a narrow 
stream, '-' heretofore navigable only by dug-outs, was 
made of the width of our steamers with great labor, 
by felling trees and sawing stumps below the surface. 
Every foot of our way was cut and torn through a 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 217 

dense forest nev^^r before traversed by steamers. I 
never witnessed a more exciting and picturesque 
scene than the transportation, on the last day, of the 
Third Brigade. Crowded with men, the steamers at 
the highest possible speed pushed through overhang- 
ing trees and around short curves. Sometimes they 
were wedged fast between trees ; then, sailing along 
smoothly, a huge cypress would reach out an arm, 
and sweep the whole length of the boats, tearing 
guards and chimneys from the decks. The last trip 
through the bayou was in a night pitchy dark and 
rainy." It was like sailing through a flooded forest. 
Porter is in advance. Audacious rebels appear in his 
rear, and, cutting down timber on both banks, form 
a barricade against his retreat. They force negroes, 
at the point of the bayonet, to cut down trees on 
both banks, and throw them over the stream to debar 
his farther advance. In this secure trap he is ex- 
j)Osed to a swarm of sharpshooters in the woods, 
but is eventually rescued by Sherman, who crowds 
forward his brigade on coal-barges. Thus is the 
fourth attempt to reach the rear of Vicksburg 
defeated. 

It was not until April 4, after two months of super- 
human toil in a disgusting region of intermmable 
swamp, unfavorable to the health, and disheartening 
to the spirits of the men, that Grant had exhausted 
every expedient for reaching the rear of Vicksburg 
from the north. 

The lessons of the school now abandon him : he 
has gone the full length of their instructions. The 
approved principles of his art now require him to 



218 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

retreat to the Tallaliatchie, and renew the movement 
of last winter by the Mississippi Central. But the 
country can endure no retrograde step : he cannot 
stand it himself. He determines to rise above all 
rules and create a precedent. 

grant's plan. 

On the 4th of April, he sends a telegram to Hal- 
leck, which first discloses the masterly strategical 
manoeuvre which he eventually executes. He ex- 
presses in plajn language his determination to march 
the main body of his army down the Louisiana shore 
to New Carthage, below Vicksburg, and from that 
point assail either Warrenton, or Grand Gulf, and gain 
a foothold on the Mississippi shore from whence he 
can reach that eastern face of Vicksburg, which has 
so long defied his utmost ingenuity and toil. He 
signifies at the same time the daring purpose of 
running the gunboats and the transports through 
the gantlets of the batteries ; for he would require 
the gunboats in his attack upon Grand Gulf or War- 
renton, and the transports to convey his army from 
the Louisiana to the Mississippi shore. 

Let the student of military history, if he can, 
produce a plan of more consummate audacity, of 
more staggering novelty. It directly invades those 
primary principles of the military art which direct 
you to tolerate no enemy between yourself and ^^our 
base of supplies. It was a voluntary surrender to 
the foe of the position which he employs campaigns, 
and exhausts all his tactics, to acquire ; and, to retain 
which, you squander means and men, and task to 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 219 

their utmost the resources of science and skill. Its 
prob-ecution involved the hazardous experiment of 
placing our army between Pemberton in Vicksburg 
and Johnston in the interior. It indicates a genius 
superior to all the trammels of rules, to all control 
from precedent. 

It was met with the unanimous dissent and the 
avowed opposition of all the subordinates upon 
whom Grant principally relied. By McPherson it 
was considered as a fatal error, by Logan as a hair- 
brained adventure, by Wilson as defying the estab- 
lished principles of military science ; and all these 
eminent leaders, in respectful language, and without 
transcending the limits of soldierly decorum, ear- 
nestly protested against it. Sherman, his most in- 
timate friend, his steadfast comrade, jealous of his 
superior's honor, proud of his reputation, confident of 
his future renown, not only pronounced against it 
orally, but placed in the hand of Grant's adjutant- 
general a communication, couched of courae .in 
deferential language, but which was in fact a remon- 
strance. The paper recommends a council of of- 
ficers to decide on future operations. It proposes, 
as a substitute to Gen. Grant's project, to fall back, 
and make the Yallabusha the base " from which to 
operate against the points where the Mississippi 
Central crosses Big Black, above Canton, and lastly 
where the Vicksburg and Jackson Railroad crosses 
the same river. The capture of Vicksburg would 
result." It concludes in the following generous 
strain : " I make these suggestions with the request 
that Gen. Grant simply read them, and give them, 



220 LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 

as I know he will, a share of his thoughts. I would 
prefer he should not answer them, but merely give 
them as much, or as little, weight as they deserve. 
"Whatever plan of action he may adopt will receive 
from me the same zealous co-operation and energetic 
support as though conceived by myself " 

Gen. Badeau informs us, that" Col. Rawlins handed 
the paper to Grant without saying a w^ord. Grant 
read it carefullj^, but in silence, and, after the perusal 
was finished, made no comment. The orders were 
not revoked, the council of war was not called, and 
the letter has never since been mentioned between 
the two commanders. Its existence was not disclosed 
by Grant until Sherman himself publicly related the 
incident after the investment of Vicksburg, when 
several prominent men were attributing to him the 
conception of the campaign which resulted in open- 
ing the Mississippi River." 

This is but one instance of the greatness of soul 
which was frequently illustrated during the long com- 
radeship of these two distinguished men. When, but 
a week or two afterwards. Grant is about to throw 
himself between two armies of the enemy on the Mis- 
sissippi shore, he wishes that Sherman shall make a 
mere feint against Haine's Bluff, for the purpose of 
distracting Pemberton. But he forbears to give an 
order to Sherman ; because he fears that the country 
will regard it as another "unlucky move" of that 
officer, saying, in the letter which suggests the feint 
to his honored subordinate, " I am loth to order it ; 
because it would be so hard to make our own troops 
to understand that only a demonstration was intended, 



WHAT DID HE DO IK THE CIVIL WAR ? 221 

and our people at home would characterize it as a 
repulse." The generosity of Grant is met by a self- 
abandonment upon the part of Sherman which is, 
perhaps, even superior in its nobility ; for he forthwith 
replies, "I believe a diversion at Haine's Bluff is proper 
and right, and will make it, let whatever reports of 
repulses be made." 

From first to last. Grant never fails to herald 
Sherman's illustrious deserts, while Sherman always 
springs forward in defence of Grant's assailed reputa- 
tion. No profane hand is lifted to pluck a laurel from 
either's brow without summoning the shield and the 
spear of the other to the defence. The amiable and 
accommodating spirit which parses by the name of 
friendship exists everywhere ; but thus to put aside 
the crown of heroic deeds, and place it upon an 
associate's head, is an example of it which can only 
here and there be seen in looking down the ages : it 
honors our common nature. It is like that of David 
and Jonathan, which, in the lamentation of that mon- 
arch minstrel beloved of heaven, — every word of 
which is swollen with a sigh and broken by a sob, — is 
called "wonderful." A friendship thus rising into 
that serene atmosphere, where it fulfils the precept, 
" In honor preferring one another," only reaches its 
plenitude of growth and perfection in the most ex- 
alted minds. 

While I was employed upon this page of my nar- 
rative, a weekly journal of repute was placed in my 
hands, the editor of which says, "Gen. Grant is a 
sphinx : who can tell us how his victories were won?" 
He wins his victories by strategical capacity, firmness, 



222 LIFE OF GEXEEAL GEANT. 

and pluck, — as Marlborough and Wellington did 
theirs. These, I take it, are the qualities which initiate 
bold campaigns, and fight out to the bitter end all the 
battles which they require. These qualities, I maintain, 
Grant possesses. Do you deny it ? Why, you find 
them all here in one bunch. The firmness and pluck 
displaj'ed at this crisis, no one has yet been found 
brazen enough to deny. Is the strategy in question ? 
Whence, then, the conception of this new enterprise, 
so vast in its prospective range, after every conceiv- 
able plan for reaching Vicksburg had failed, if it was 
not either an emanation of strategical genius, or the 
result of previous strategical study and meditation ? 
Conceived by .a Napoleon, genius it would have been 
called; by a Wellington, talent. Would any one 
withhold from it the credit of strategy if either Scott 
or Sherman or Sheridan had composed it ? And shall 
this meed be refused, because it proceeds from a man 
whose eye rolls " in no fine frenzy," who aspires to 
no brilliancy or dash, who thinks more than he talks, 
and who emerged from a leather-store to guide armies 
and plan campaigns? Yet these are the narrow 
prejudices which instigate the sneer, "Grant is a 
sphinx : who can explain how his victories were won ? " 
implying that there is nothing in them but successful 
blunder, or the inexplicable mystery of chance. The 
victory of the allies at Alma has been attributed to 
the fact, that Lord Raglan, losing himself in a kind of 
imaginary fox-chase, finally stumbled upon a hill 
where the battery could be placed, which decided the 
contest along the English front. But there is too 
uuich system and forethouoht and combination in 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CITIL WAR ? 223 

Grant's plan ; it involves a too long succession of self- 
dependent steps, all pointing to one result, to be re- 
solved bj any theory of accident or chance. You 
might as well assert that the conclusions of Eu- 
clid are reached by chance. Yet those who deny 
to Grant the merit of strategy must attribute the 
capture of Vicksburg to a series of fortunate fortui- 
ties. The successive steps which he devised to ac- 
complish the grand result were as follows, and the 
conclusion was an abortion if there was a failure in 
either: 1. March the army from Milliken's Bend to 
New Carthage. 2. Run the gunboats and transports 
through the batteries. 3. Silence or turn Grand Gulf, 
which also blockades the river. 4. Transfer the army 
from the Louisiana to the Mississippi shore. 5. Fight 
every array which presents itself between Grand Gulf 
and Vicksburg. 6. Drive Pemberton, if not annihilated 
in the field, behind his fortifications. 7. Besiege and 
capture him and Vicksburg. All these separate 
beams are to be collected in one focus, or Vicksburcr 
is lost. They were collected, and Vicksburg was won. 
Was this chance, or strategy ? 

I must now direct my attention to the execution 
of each systematized movement of this progressive 
series : — * 

1. Grant marches along the Louisiana shore to 
New Carthage and Hard Times. The whole force 
must be moved : not in detachments, for there is dan- 
ger from the strong garrison at Vicksburg, as well as 
from Dick Taylor's corps, operating in Northern 
Louisiana ; and, therefore, a division must be moved 



224 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

simultaneously. Sherman is recalled from the Yazoo, 
McPherson from Lake Providence, and Hurlbut — 
still at Grand Junction — drained of every man he 
can spare. The Northern waters and lakes are laid 
under contribution for flat-boats and scows. No un- 
travelled citizen of this hill-country can form any 
idea of the amphibious region between Milliken's 
Bend and New Carthage; nor can he, of course, 
conceive the hardships of this dreadful march, in the 
freshet season, through that maze of bayous and 
rivers filled with the back-water of the Mississippi, of 
swamp-thickets alluring to the foot of the soldier, 
but engulfing him in their treacherous depths of mud, 
thick, adhesive, bottomless, — all constituting a dreary 
landscape, which suggests to the imagination the 
appearance of the new-born earth when the superin- 
cumbent waters were first retiring, and it was not 
yet mady for the habitation of man. The air above 
is heavy and dismal with miasmatic vapor ; rank and 
noxious vegetation sprouts from the ooze ; the cay 
man crawls in the slime, and the pelican and unclean 
buzzard flap their wings lazily over it. McClernand 
leads the advance by what is well christened " Round- 
way " Bayou. All the provision, ammunition, and 
ordnance are to be dragged alternately on wheels, 
and transported on scows, through this forlorn tract, 
designed for the especial dwelling-place of that species 
of bird called " waders." The artillery wagons are at 
the first plunge almost lost in a Serbonian bog. Grant's 
familiarity with quartermaster's details, learned in 
a previous war and on frontier posts, is not lost to 
his country in this emergency; for he personally 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE, ? 225 

supervises the forwarding of stores, — as indispensable 
to the army as victory itself The country is already 
sufficiently watered, but there is a constant apprehen- 
sion that the enemy will cut the levees and deluge the 
army. Canals, bridges, causeways, are the daily labor 
of the floundering columns. After twenty-seven miles 
of such a march as was never dreamed of even by 
Alexander, McClernand's advance catch a welcome 
glimpse of the hamlet of New Carthage, only to find 
that its inhabitants, by cutting the levee of Bayou 
Vidal, have covered an area of two miles with an im- 
passable sea. Now, from every bayou on the route, 
Grant collects the yawls and flat-boats, and forwards 
them to McClernand's homesick men, who vividly 
recall the log-cabin on Northern prairies, where from 
maternal lips they first heard of Pharaoh and his 
hosts overwhelmed with the waters of the Red Sea. 
The division is next ordered to Perkins's plantation, 
twelve miles below. Four pontoons, six hundred 
feet long, are extemporized from material at hand. 
Water transportation is prepared ; but only a few 
brigades are moved before the retiring freshet leaves 
scows and flat-boats stranded in black mud. Nothino; 
remains but the old resort to wading. But all marches 
have their end ; and the toiling troops at length emerge 
from the lowering cypress-swamp into the dazzling 
sunlight of Perkins's plantation, where the languid 
eye is animated by well-cultured acres rivalling in 
verdure an English lawn, by the banana, the fig, 
and the orange tree, bending beneath their ripening 
load. Frames bent by an oppressive journey erect 
themselves again, and weary lungs joyfully expand 

15 



226 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

to drink in full draughts of air burtliened with the 
blossoms of magnolia and oleander. It is an oasis in 
the desert. It reminds Grant of his delightful so- 
journ in the perennial gardens of Puebla ; it recalls 
to the revived soldier the lines which he had whis- 
pered when bidding adieu to loved ones in the frozen 
North,— 

" Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine ? 
'Tis the clime of the South, 'tis the land of the Sun : 
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done ? " 

By the 29th of April, McClernand with the Thir- 
teenth, and McPherson with the Seventeenth Army 
Corps, have reached Hard Times, opposite Grand Gulf.^ 
Sherman with the Fifteenth is still at Milliken's Bend. 
Grant is with the advance. The first link of the 
chain which is to bind Vicksburg has been success- 
fully forged. 

2. Grant runs the gunboats and transports through 
the batteries. The transportation of supplies by the 
labyrinth I have just described was a task of so much 
difficulty, that Grant deteritiines to pusili three steam- 
ers and ten bargefs through the gantlet immediately. 
Seven iron-clads are promptly ordered by Commodore 
Porter to convoy the frail and combustible flotilla. 
The steamers detailed to tow the barges through the 
perilous gateway are the Henry Clay, Forest City, 
and Silver Wave, — their bulwarks lined with bales 
of cotton and hay. It is fifteen miles in length, be- 
set by eddies and cross-currents, and hatchelled at 
every .step by twenty-eight guns: they fairly rain 
upon these tinder-boxes red-hot shot and incendiary 



I 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 227 

Shell. Well might the crews shrink from a voyage 
of two hours and a half through a pass like that at 
Lodi or Areola. But, at the call, volunteers by the 
thousand contest the honor of joining in this dance of 
death. 

The night of the 16th of April is selected for the 
enterprise, and eleven o'clock is the hour. Grant 
stations himself upon a transport, just above the bend, 
to watch a passage upon which the fate of Vicksburg 
han^s. The sun had sunk beneath the horizon with 
a tropical glory which fairly boiled up to the zenith 
in gold and carmine ; and early in the evening the 
constellations had marched up the celestial concave, 
their pomp and sj)lendor all unveiled. A planet in 
mid-heaven shines like a Pharos; the great watch- 
stars, Sirius and the Pleiades, in full state, are on guard 
to-night ; and the belt of Orion beams like the baldric 
of an Eastern king. But, suddenly, a thin haze, ex- 
haled from the river, dims the splendor of the vault, 
and drops like gauze before the outlines of the frown- 
ing ridge. At this moment Grant beholds, sombre 
and silent, the Henry Clay with her train of barges 
gliding into the shade {)rofound of the Louisiana 
shore, and hardly distinguishable from the cypresses 
on the bank. He sees the Forest City and the Sil- 
ver Wave with a similar following, noiseless, every 
light extinguished, indistinct, shadowy as the genie 
which rose in smoke from the jar when the seal of 
Solomon was broken. The seven invulnerables, the 
Benton on the lead, with fires all hidden, no treach- 
erous spark darting from their funnels, silent as 
phantom ships, take their appointed station between 



228 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

their convoy and the threatening highlands. He can 
hardly suppress a shudder, as they creep stealthily 
around the curve into full range of the deluge of 
destruction, which an unguarded word, or the fall of 
a handspike, may at any moment unloose. For a 
second or two, the agony of suspense fairly strains the 
blue blouse which covers him, as if it were " a world 
too scant" for the strong passions within it. Will pro- 
pitious fortune allow them to pass unnoticed ? The 
hope is an illusion. A light is dancing along the 
heights of Yicksburg ; a flame throws itself from the 
summit ; another and another belches from the cliff; 
and, rapid and more rapid, a momentary fire and roar, 
race along the beleaguered stronghold ; and the explo- 
sive missiles dive faster and faster upon the flock 
on the river, and his strained sight can trace their im- 
perilled progress by the increasing intensity of the 
storm. This nocturnal tornado reaches its height 
when the citadel's full armament peers out into — 

* " The Jim night haze, 

And all gunners with sponge ami rammer, 
And all captains with cord and hammer, 
Keep every muzzle ablaze." 

In the midst of confusion worse confounded is heard 
now the deeper bay of the heavier artillery of the gun- 
boats, outroaring the war-dogs on the heights ; and 
the hope which " springs eternal " begins again to de- 
lude Grant with the idea, that the iron-clads on their 
impenetrable sides will receive the brunt of the storm, 
and that the " egg-shells," hidden by the smoke, will 
steal along uninjured in the shadow of the Louisiana 
shore. But lo ! river and ridge are instantly illumi- 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 229 

Dated, as if the sun had burst forth in meridian splen- 
dor ; for from what first appears a mere ball of white 
light a refulgent and lurid flame is born, so powerful, 
so clear, that, where Grant stands, the shadow of his 
hand is thrown upon the wood-work of the trans- 
port, and, of course, it pours full-orbed radiance into 
that convex shore where the doomed transports are 
hiding from destruction. Beacon lights have been 
kindled on the ridge ! at its base every house is a 
bonfire ! Grant, however, consoles himself with the 
thought, that, before these were lighted, the transports 
had weathered the upper batteries, which are now 
comparatively dumb; while Warrenton bellows with 
all its might. But alas ! another flame begins to as- 
cend into the murky canopy. Has Warrenton also 
kindled its beacon ? No : for this light is soft and 
mellow as Aurora's, and climbs slowly into the mid- 
night air, rolling up volumes of smoke, while the 
beacon, piercing, vivid, unclouded, darts like a pan- 
ther through the void ; and, by lining the new flame,'' 
he can see that it changes its bearing, and is palpably 
moving down the river. There is no disguising the 
truth that a steamer is ablaze. Sickened by the ap- 
prehension that this mass of light is contributing to 
the ruin of all the transports, he retires to a restless 
pillow, as silence and darkness resume their sway 
along the embattled bluffj and the encircling cypresses 
bring back the echo of solitary guns. It was not 
until noon of the next day that the joyful intelligence 
reached him that the seven gunboats were anchored 
below Warrenton, ready for action ; and that the Sil- 
ver Wave and Forest Queen, though somewhat dam- 



230 LIFE OF GEXEEAL GEAXT. 

aged, could jet transfer his troops to the Mississippi 
shore ; and that the barges, with one or two exceptions, 
had carried their precious supplies safely through the 
terrible ordeal. Through the timbers of the Forest 
Queen a round shot had crashed, tearing her steering 
apparatus into flinders, when she had been caught by a 
gunboat, and rescued from the whirlpools which were 
again hurrying her under the guns. The Silver 
Wave outrode the tempest, without a wing broken or 
a feather ruffled. The Henry Clay, crippled at the 
uppermost battery, and becoming unmanageable, 
turned the barges adrift; but the Tuscumbia adroitly 
caught the tow-line, and under her sturdy protection 
the fragile craft rode the troubled stream to a secure 
anchorage. But the wounded steamboat, tossed by 
the eddies again and again, under the plunging fire 
from the ridge, received an explosive shell in her 
cotton-bale bulwark, and, wrapped in flame and cano- 
pied and wreathed in angry smoke, whirled down the 
river, lighting the landscape with a lurid and ghastly 
glare. On the 26th of April, five transports and six 
barges also succeed in running the batteries. With this 
re-enforcement of transportation and supplies. Grant 
feels strong enough for any emergency before him. 
And thus the second link of the chain which is. to bind 
Vicksburg is firmly welded to the first. 

3. Grant turns Grand Gulf. — Reconnoissance had 
revealed, that the only solid road by which the inte- 
rior of Mississippi can be reached strikes the river at 
Bruinsburg, below Grand Gulf, whose bold promontory 
with thirteen heavy guns and rifle-trenches, confronts 
the army. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL TVAE ? 231 

They must be carried, or we are no nearer Vicks- 
burg than when we were exploring Lake Providence 
and the Yazoo Pass. The 29th of April is assigned 
for its bombardment. Grant orders the Thirteenth 
Army Corps aboard the transports, to co-operate with 
Porter's iron-clads in their assault upon the heights. 
The Louisville, Carondelet, Mound City, and Pitts- 
burg dash in within pistol-range of the lower bat- 
teries, and silence them. The upper batteries defy 
the cannonade of the Benton, Tuscumbia, and Lafay- 
ette, and also of the combined squadron, when all 
are rallied against them. By no change of position, 
by no mechanical contrivance, can the vessels lift 
their Dahlgrens to a sufficient elevation to drive the 
gunners from the redoubt. After a struggle of five 
hours and more, Porter fails to silence the enemy, and 
it would have been the desperation of madness to 
have landed a storming party while his artillery, was 
active. 

This unexpected contingency temporarily arrests 
the organized plan : the third link cracks in the for- 
ging. But Grant meets the dilemma with as much 
presence of mind as if defeat at this point had been 
anticipated from the outset. He again disembarks 
his two army corps upon the Louisiana bank, again 
resumes his march along its miry strand, and at night, 
under the wings of the gunboats, again drives the 
flotilla, still riddled by the iron hail of Vicksburg, 
through another devastating blast from Grand Gulf 
On the morning they drop anchor at De Shroon's 
Point, on the western shore, three miles below the 
promontory which had defied our armored squadron. 



232 LIFE OF GENEKAL GEANT. 

McClernand and McPherson have reached the same 
position by the land. The fractured link is replaced. 
On this same day, Sherman, ordered by Grant, has 
led a formidable expedition up the Yazoo, and before 
Haine's Bluff is making ostentatious reconnoissances, 
and planting batteries, and stationing storming par- 
ties, as if a frantic escalade was forthwith intended. 
As soon, however, as darkness favors the stratagem, he 
gathers the Fifteenth Corps again into its transports, 
disembarks it again at Milliken's Bend, and, upon 
roads decidedly improved, is marching rapidly to 
concentrate upon his comrades at De Shroon's. 

4. Grant transfers the army to the 3Iississippi 
shore. — It would be difficult to find lansjuagre to ex- 
aggerate the unwearied industry of Grant during these 
operations of consummate labor and difficulty which I 
have just delineated. It is an error to suppose that 
any great results are attained in war without the 
most assiduous toil. No great thing is ever achieved 
without it ; neither Nature nor the gods reward 
either indolence or busy bustle with the attainment 
of grand ends. There is no royal road to a great 
success : it is mastered only by the unremitting em- 
ployment of every means and opportunity which can 
subserve its far-reaching plans. I have already said 
that Gen. Grant Avon his victories " by strategy, reso- 
lution, and pluck ; " let me add here, that he also 
won them by industry, constancy, and self-confidence. 
The tedium of that march alone, through forty miles 
of such quagmire as troops never encountered before, 
would have driven any military exquisite to de- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 233 

spair. The perils of the gantlet would have been 
to others insurmountable reasons for abandoning this 
campaign. The battles yet before him are a war in 
themselves ; yet never for a moment does he wilt 
from fatigue, waver by hardship, or stand dismayed 
before dangers. He is lifted through them all, as on 
the wings of an eagle, by the noble prize in view. 
During this period, so disheartening to others, his tele- 
grams to Halleck indicate no distrust, no abated con- 
fidence in himself; and, after he reaches De Shroon's, 
they are in the exultant strain which conclusively 
shows that he feels master of the situation, if he can 
only take time by the forelock. With a load upon 
his mind which would have unnerved any man in 
the land but himself, he takes upon his shoulders all 
the enormous details of chief commissary and quarter- 
master, timing marches to supplies, transportation 
to the exigences of the moment, watching that 
ammunition is always at hand, and, from apparently 
conflicting combinations, educing harmony and order. 
He cannot disguise from himself the immense impor- 
tance of planting his foot firmly on the Mississippi 
shore before the enemy can concentrate upon him at 
the landing. He has thrown overboard the maxim 
" Hasten slowly ; " and " Haste before every thing " is 
now the rule. Fearing that he had hardly transporta- 
tion enough to perform this fourth labor with sufficient 
expedition, he addresses to the chief quartermaster at 
Milliken's Bend a peremptory order which has speed 
in every syllable. " Run two more tow-boats and two 
more barges through the blockade. Do it in forty- 
eight hours. If the crews decline to run through, call 



234 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

on the commanding officers for volunteers, and dis- 
cliaro'e the crew." He fortifies Perkins's plantation 
with a celerity that fairly lifts the hair from McPher- 
son's head. He directs the commissary to issue provis- 
ions to the troops without ^'even making returns',' to 
avoid any possible pretext for delay. He takes with 
him no wagon nor tent, not even a blanket. He 
waits not for horses, either for himself or his staff; 
but animating every department with his own breath- 
less speed, every officer with his own restless energy, 
he leads the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps 
to the eastern bank of the great river, and thus adds 
an additional link to the chain. 

5. Grant fights every army which aiijyears in 
his front between Grand Gulf and Vlckshurg. — 
Sherman's Fifteenth Corps has not yet come up, and 
Grant stands in the enemy's country with but thirty 
thousand men ; with but five days' rations, and the 
Mississippi between him and his base of supplies; 
without tents and without a wagon. He must draw 
food and ammunition from Milliken's Bend via 
Roundaway Bayou to Perkins's plantation, and 
thence by ferriage to such point on the Mississippi 
shore as he shall occupy. 
• Even in its present aspect, the campaign is of as- 
tounding audacity. The road from Bruinsburg reach- 
es the heights, which are but a prolongation of the 
Vicksburg Blufis, by a defile which can be defended 
against an army by a few resolute foemen; and Grant's 
anxiety is, of course, intense to secure a lodgment 
on the highlands. McClernand's van is at the mouth 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAP. ? 235 

of the defile ere his rear has landed, and late in the 
afternoon the coveted position is secured. 

The country in his front is admirably adapted to 
defence, being a wide, waving, champaign country, 
broken into sharp and difficult ravines, and covered 
with trees and underbrush where it is not under cul- 
tivation. The road to Bruinsburg is but an exten- 
sion of the main route from Port Gibson — twelve 
miles off — to Jackson, the capital of,, the State, and 
at Port Gibson it intersects the road to Grand Gulf 
Here Gen. Bowen is in command of the rebels ; and, as 
soon as he discovers the intention of Grant, he sends 
a messenger to Vicksburg for re-enforcements, and 
sallies out himself with between seven and eight thou- 
sand men to select a position where he can arrest at 
once the progress of his antagonist. Just in advance 
of Port Gibson, he finds a convenient stand-point, 
where the road presents two diverging branches, 
which meet again at that town. At the widest point, 
they are not more than two miles apart ; and the in- 
terval between them is composed of sharp ravines, 
filled with a tano-led thicket of bamboo and mao^nolia. 

o o 

He plants his right wing upon one, and 'his left upon 
the other, to hold Grant in check, until re-enforce- 
ments can arrive from Vicksburg. Both wings are 
supported by artillery. 

As soon as the enemy's position had been defined 
by skirmishers, McClernand developed a line of battle, 
faced to the rising sun, which was for some time a 
great annoyance to his troops. He attacks upon both 
roads, addressing himself to the enemy's left, and di- 
recting Osterhaus against the right. The " shout of 



236 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

battle now begun, and rusbing sound," rouses Grant, 
at Bruinsburg, wbo immediately impresses a quarter- 
master's horse, betakes himself with all speed to the 
field, and assumes direction of the affair. Three di- 
visions of McClernand's army corps were strenuously 
crowding back the enemy upon the road before them ; 
but Osterhaus was dealing with more stubbornness, 
posted in a stronger position. The force in his front 
held a ridge for their centre, a gulch scooped out from 
the road for their left, and for their right a thicket- 
defended ravine. They defy all efforts of Osterhaus 
to dislodge them. He tussles at every available point 
with Teutonic vim, but they will not yield. Grant 
gives his personal attention to this part of the field ; 
and as McPherson is now up, with the advance of 
the Seventeenth, he- directs him to throw a brigade 
through the ravine to the left flank of the corps which 
is hold inn; us in check, and he orders Osterhaus to 
assault their front with fury. Grant supervises the 
flank movement, and, as soon as he feels out the 
enemy's position, charges down the ravine, through 
bamboo and magnolia jungle; and, at the same time, 
Osterhaus's .rifles hew the centre. The combined 
attack is completely successful, and the whole of the 
enemy's right wing is tumbled into Port Gibson. 

Meanwhile Bowen's left win"; has been re-enforced 
by three thousand men under Loring, who have 
marched this morning twenty miles, from Vicksburg, 
and arrive upon the field flurried and blown. Mc- 
Clernand is somewhat supplicatory for support, al- 
though he has as many troops as can find elbow-room, 
and his subordinates are steadily pressing the enemy, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAH ? 237 

in spite of the re-animation he exhibits upon ihe ar- 
rival of Loring. Grant now despatches a brigade to 
his assistance; but, just as their bayonets flash upon 
the rebels' eye, Bowen's line, with the shout, " Feds' 
left wing yonder ! " disappear like children of the mist. 
Bowen made a stout and gallant defence ; but the 
weight of our nineteen thousand was too heavy for 
him, even with every advantage of position. The 
pursuit is continued until dark, and prisoners are cap- 
tured within two miles of Port Gibson.^ The fruits 
of this decisive victory soon appear. Port Gibson and 
Grand Gulf are abandoned. We threaten Jackson, 
as well as all the conimunications of Vicksburg. 

From our front, the rebels scatter in every direction, 
burning every bridge which they pass, and strewing 
their retreat with unmistakable signs of demoraliza- 
tion. Our columns crowd close on their heels; and our 
excited troops hesitate not to work up to their ^vaists 
in w\ater, that the bridges may be repaired. Within 
two days from the action, McPherson and Logan are 
fifteen miles from Port Gibson, pursuing the broken 
fragments of Bowen across the Big Black. Within 
two days from the action. Grant, with a cavalry escort 
of twenty men, rides into Grand Gulf He finds it 
in possession of Porter, who had occupied it in the 
morning with a detachment of marines. He w^nt 

1 Grant captured 650 prisoners and six field-guns. Lossf. 130 killed, 715 
wounded. 

Bowen reports 448 killed and wounded, and 384 missing. The absurdity of 
this statement appears from the number of his prisoners which we had in hand. 
He left u part of his killed and wounded upon the field ; and Grant's estimate 
was that the enemy's loss was about equivalent to his own. We brought 
about 1 9,000 men into action ; and the enemy had, with the Vicksburg re-enforce- 
ments, nearly 12,000, which, with his superiority of position, fully equalled us. 



238 LIFE OF GENERAL GEAXT. 

aboard one of the gunboats, and penned his des- 
patches to Ilalleck, his orders to Sherman, and to the 
commissaries and quartermasters stretched all the 
way from Milliken's Bend to Perkins's plantation. He 
assures Halleck, that the road " to Vicksburg is open." 
He uro-es Sherman to advance with all expedition, 
reminding him "of the overwhelming importance 
of celerity," and informing him that all that is need- 
ed " is hard-tack and ammunition ; for we can sub- 
sist our horses upon the countr}^, and obtain con- 
siderable supplies for our troops." To the quarter- 
masters he says, " Hurry on the wagons and the 
barges ; " to the commissariat, " Every thing depends 
upon the promptitude with which supplies are fur- 
nished." The sole uncertainty, too, which had at all 
hampered his freedom, is liere dispelled ; for he finds 
here despatches from Banks which discourage every 
hope of mutual co-operation and support. 

Grant has now, by his advanced columns and out- 
posts, penetrated far enough into the rebel domin- 
ions to ascertain his precise relation to their armies. 
He is within twelve miles of Warrenton, — the extreme 
left of the enemy's Vicksburg line. He knows that 
within the strong-hold, and on the contiii-uous rail- 
roads, Pembdrton has upwards of fifty thousand men. 
He knows that within the neighborhood of Jackson, 
fifty miles in the rear of Vicksburg, but united with 
it by the iron horse, thirty thousand men are col- 
lected under Gregg. He knows that his danger lies 
in being overwhelmed by a concentration of Pem- 
berton and Gregg. And these questions now ad- 
dress him with an importunity which will take "no 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 239 

denial : " Shall I maintain ray elongated connection 
with Milliken's Bend, and approach Vicksburg with 
^regular operations,' and therefore risk a junction of 
these two armies ? or shall I burn my ships, cut loose 
from my base, and by a 'movable column ' demolish 
Gregg before he can unite with Pemberton?" He 
is aware of all the benefits of "regular operations;" 
he knows all the perils of the "movable column." 
An army engaged in " regular operations " has been 
likened to an engine drawing its supplies by means 
of long pipes from a river ; while the. principle of 
the " movable column " is w^ell enough compared to 
the " simple skin full of water, which, carried on the 
back of a camel, is the life of men passing a desert." 
Of the advantages of the "movable column" it has 
been truthfully said, that its means of land transpor- 
tation are comparatively small, and may be propor- 
tioned to the limited duration of the service which it 
undertakes ; that it is unhampered by a line of com- 
munication, and has nothing to do but take care of 
itself And of its drawbacks it has been ecfually well 
said, that it is fitted only for temporary use, because 
it has no resources to rely upon, except what it 
carries along with it ; that it incurs not only the haz- 
ard of defeat, but of total extermination, for it has 
left no dominion in its wake, and, if it falls back, it 
falls into the midst of enemies having hold of the 
country around, and emboldened by seeing it re- 
treat.^ 

The system of " regular approaches " to Vicksburg 
was Grant's idea when he crossed the Mississippi ; but 

1 Kinglake's Crimean War, p. 439. 



240 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

he again modifies his plan to the emergences of the 
situation, and the imperious requirements of celerity. 
The change encounters from his subordinates the 
same respectfid but earnest opposition with which 
they met the new movement when it was first 
initiated. They cite the authority of military rules 
and traditions; they remonstrate in the name of 
patriotism and an imperilled cause. Sherman, who is 
on his march, and has not yet heard of the resolution 
to act without "any base at all," is daily sending 
telegrams which indicate his distress at the "jammed 
and cumbered " condition of the " line of operations " 
between Milliken's Bend and Perkins's plantation, and 
predicts starvation if fifty thousand *men are to be 
fed b}^ one circuitous and overburdened road, and is 
beseeching Grant " to stop all the troops until he is 
supplied with wagons." Halleck has not vouchsafed a 
syllable of encouragement since Grant turned his face 
to the southward. And it is fortunate for the coun- 
try that at this juncture Grant was not in telegraphic 
communication with Washington ; for then he would 
have received from Halleck the countermanding or- 
der, "Unite with Banks between Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson, so as to attack these places separately^ 
with the combined fprce." ' The president also was 
hostile to the advance upon Vicksburg ; for he says, in 
the congratulatory letter which he addressed to Grant 
upon its capture, " When you got below and took 
Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you 
shoidd go down the river, and join Gen. Banks ; and 
when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I 
feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a per- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 241 

sonal acknowledgment that you was right, and I was 
wrong." For the first time since Grant enhsted in 
the war, he is relieved from the intermeddling inter- 
ference of bureau generals. He is now, for a short 
time, lord of himself; and this Vicksburg campaign 
is the first exhibition of his untrammelled genius. 

Unmoved by the ominous silence of the Govern- 
ment, by the faithful advice of his military counsel- 
lors, by the entreaty of patriotic solicitude, by the 
warnings of Sherman's anxiety, he adheres inflexibly 
to his new purpose, loyal to himself and his decision. 

" But he took great risks." True, my friend : war 
is not like your safe avocation, which sedulously 
avoids every risk which may jeopardize your per- 
sonal safety ; but it is a business of risks. Habitually 
governed by the adage, " Nothing venture, nothing 
win," its master knows when great risks will yield 
superlative returns. Grant does what you would not : 
he turns from " dominion in his wake ; " incurs the 
hazard, not only of "defeat, but extermination;" and, 
with that self-reliance which you brand as temerity, 
places himself between two hostile armies in posses- 
sion of railroad facilities, and stakes himself, his for- 
tunes, and his country's cause, upon the sovereign 
convictions of his unsupported judgment. M the 
memorabilia of the race presents a more superemi- 
nent illustration of decision of character, let it be pro- 
duced. It would almost seem that he regarded 
Vicksburg as his foreordained prize from the begin- 
ning of the world. ■ 

He now establishes his headquarters at Harkin- 
son's Ferry ; and while still bent upon employing 



16 



242 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

every stratagem to delude the enemy and distract his 
councils, by concealing his real intention, his mind 
is possessed of a purpose which no mortal power can 
disturb, — to march to Jackson against all odds, and 
destroy there Pemberton's re-enforcements, and iso- 
late Vicksburg from all communication with the Con- 
federacy. I am writing the biography of a reticent 
man ; and this purpose was born out of that silent 
meditation which wiseacres sneer at as stupidity. 

Prompt upon the resolve, Sherman is met at De 
Shroon's with transports; Blair's division is hurried 
from Milliken's Bend ; four regiments from Hurlbut, 
at Memphis, supply his place at Milliken's ; and Lau- 
man's division is drawn from the remote boundaries 
of the command. Provisions are again distributed 
regardless of requisitions or returns. While waiting 
for Sherman, McClernand scours the country for sup- 
plies, and McPherson reconnoitres all the railroads in 
the vicinity ; and, last but not least, the war-horses of 
headquarters fortunately arrive at Harkinson's. 

McPherson now bears our banner boldly inland 
to Rocky Springs on the 7th, to Utica and Auburn 
on the 10th, and on the 11th flaunts it in front of 
Kaymond. From Cayuga, on the 11th, Grant writes 
to HiJleck, I shall communicate with Grand Gulf no 
more ; and from here, too, he disseminates his final 
edicts from Grand Gulf to Cairo, all enjoining a hearty 
co-operation with the grand movement, descending 
even to such minute particulars as, " Let no prisoners 
be paroled until the fate of Vicksburg is decided." 
Sherman is hurled off on a tangent to Fourteen-mile 
Creek, threatening Black-river Bridge ; and, after 



•WHAT DID HE DO IlsT THE CIVIL WAR ? 



243 



having distracted and deceived Pemberton, dashes 
bacii at an acute angle, and falls into the right of his 
file-leader, McPherson. McClernand's line of march is 
directed to guard the ferries on the Big Black, and 
to deploy into action on Sherman's flank. Thus our 
battle-line, forty-three thousand strong, with a hun- 
dred and twenty guns, — Sherman in the centre, 
McPherson on the right, McClernand on the left, — 
marches from Rocky Springs to Raymond. 

Calendar. 



MAT, 



1863. 



Day of Month. 


Day of Week. 


Vicksburg Week. 


Twelfth. 


Tuesday. 


Battle of Raymond. 


Thirteenth. 


Wednesday. 


On the march. 


Fourteenth. 


Thursday. 


Battle of Jackson. 


Fifteenth. 


Friday. 


Oa the march. 


Sixteenth. 


Saturday. 


Battle of Champion's Hill. 


Seventeenth. 


Sunday. 


Battle of Big Black. 


Eighteenth. 


Monday. 


Grant on Vicksburg Bluflf. • 


Nineteenth. 


Tuesday. 


Siege begins. 



McPherson's army corps is in two divisions. One 
is under Logan, who, turning with ease into a military 
channel the genius which had charmed the popular 
assembly, rapidly rises into a chivalrous and accom- 
plished general ; the other is under Crocker, of 
whom the reticent commander-in-chief savs, " I have 
never known a better division leader, except Sher- 



244 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

man and Sheridan." Bright and early on Tuesday 
mornintr, Lojran is on the march, and Crocker follow- 
ing him. Before dawn, their cavalry advance is jdcs- 
tered by the fire of vedettes ; and by daylight a 
regiment is deployed upon each side of the road, 
with skirmishers in front to clear from the woods 
flocks of rebel sharpshooters. By eleven o'clock, ^ 
Farnden's Creek is in our front, and sweeping both 
bridge and road, are two batteries of artillery ; while 
the summit of that hill upon our left ■ flashes with 
bayonets, and heavy volleys are already ringing from 
the ravines and timber at its foot, ft is Greo-ff's com- 
mand, five thousand strong. 

McPherson clears the trains from the road; and 
Logan spreads out his brigade into battle-line, and 
advances it within musket-rauQ-e of the wooded ra- 
vine lying along the base of the hill. It is received 
with a heavy fire from the timber, but holds its ground 
firmly. The second and third brigades close up their 
ranks as supports of the first. Our artillery plays 
upon the woods; the enemy's, upon our infixntry. 
But the pressure of Logan's stanch lines does the 
work; and, before Crocker's division reaches the field, 
Gregg is in full retreat, and our artillery ploughing 
through the fugitives. Pursuit is instantly made; and 
by five o'clock we drive the enemy through Raymond, 
and follow him up far on the road to Jackson.^ 

Deceived by Sherman's demonstration in the di- 
rection of Vicksburg, Pemberton holds his iriain body 

1 In the battle of Raymond we lose 69 killed, 341 wounded, 30 missing. 
The enemy, 100 killed, 305 wounded, 415 prisoners, two pieces of cannon, and 
a quantity of small-ai-ms. 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 245 

at Edward's Depot in battle array, and issues orders 
to Gregg — which are constantly intercepted by our 
scouts — to attack Grant upon the flank as soon as 
he becomes engaged at Edward's. At this intimation, 
McClernand quietly withdraws his pickets from Pem- 
berton's front, and marches to Raymond. Grant on 
Tuesday evening closes McClernand upon Sherman, 
and both upon McPherson. The whole line is on 
the march ; drawing rations from the flour-mills and 
store-houses of the country, and using ambulances as 
ammunition wasfons. The rain falls in torrents from 
Wednesday night until Thursday noon ; but no ordi- 
nary mire, no mere slippery roads, can discourage an 
army which has waded from Milliken's Bend to De 
Sliroon's. In close order and with elated hearts, our 
troops easily overcome the fourteen miles between 
Raymond and Jackson, and find time moreover to 
dismantle railroads and telegraph poles, catching in 
transitu upon the wires a despatch from Pemberton, 
which proves that he is still befogged at Edward's 
Depot. 

Forthwith Sherman is aimed at Jackson by the 
Raymond, and McPherson by the Clinton Road. Both 
are opened to the city, where Johnston is now in 
command, and has already ordered Pemberton to fall 
upon the rear of Grant. Sherman and McPherson 
have agreed upon the hour of their rendezvous at 
Jackson. Advancing on the Clinton Road, the pickets 
of Crocker, who is on the lead, engage the enemy 
five miles from Jackson, and crowd back the outposts 
upon the main defences, within two and a half miles 
of the city. At the same, hour, and at about the 



246 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

same distance from the enemy's front Sherman, on 
the Raymond Road, is scattering vedettes and skir- 
mishers. The Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army 
Corps are two miles apart; but Grant is confident 
that either is a match for Johnston's army, and there- 
fore disdains to connect these wings. Grant is ready 
for Johnston, strike where he wiU. McClernand is 
in supporting distance, — one division at Chnton, 
another at Mississippi Springs, a third at Raymond, 
a fourth at Auburn. 

Upon our troops in front of Jackson, just as the 
dispositions were being made for action, the rain de- 
scends in a deluge. No man ventured to open his 
cartridge-box ; and it was seriously feared for an hour 
or two that the elements had taken into their own 
hands a conflict upon which such mighty issues 
hung. During the tornado, however, Logan brings 
up his division as a reserve, and McPherson defines 
the enemy's position. In his immediate front, the 
Clinton Road passes through a field broken here and 
there by ridges, and clumps of trees, and beyond inter- 
sects a semi-circular ridge upon which the enemy has 
planted two batteries, — one seizing the prolongation 
of the road, and the other scouring the field with an 
oblique fire. Long lines of infantry are deployed 
behind the crest, their right protected by a grove, and 
their left overlooking McPherson's approach through 
the field. We form our line on both sides of the 
road, taking every advantage of the swells and the 
timber; and one brigade of Logan is thrown oJQT to 
the left, threatening an avenue into the city from 
f.he north-west. A Missouri battery finds a station 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 247 

near a cotton-gin in the field, and an artillery duel 
rules the hour ; while our skirmishers advance within 
annoying distance of the enemy's gunners, and are 
again recalled as they begin to feeL the weight of 
Johnston's infantry. Crocker, who is holding his 
division in hand, is not given to long ranges or tem- 
porizing expedients : the crest, he says, must be 
carried, or this barfing of guns and chasseing of 
skirmishers will last till doomsday. To the whole 
line he calls, " Charge!" -and with flying colors, at 
double-quick, his well-disciplined battalions sweep 
through the ravine, and with level bayonets scale the 
hill. One tremendous volley rocks and tears the well- 
ordered ranks ; but at the next second, within thirty 
paces, it is repaid with interest, and we are on the 
staggered foe with cold steel. Over fences and en- 
closures, through brushwood, brier, and brake, surges 
and resurges the battl(|. For ten minutes there is 
such a hand-to-hand grapple here as is seldom seen in 
war. The enemy stands for an instant, then quivers, 
then braces again, then wavers, and finally wilts into 
the dissolution of chaos : our reloaded muskets have 
only to goad a terrified flight. 

Meanwhile Sherman, on the Raymond Road, brush- 
es from his path a battery on a bridge, and, with a 
stiff line of skirmishers, worries into their intrench- 
raents a skittish line of infantry. The Fifteenth 
surmounts the bridge, and emerging from the woods, 
and deploying into line beyond the creek, finds itself 
confronted by an ostentatious display of rifle-pits, and 
enfiladed by a' serious artillery fire. Sherman storms 
the batteries, and captures ten pieces and a hundred 



248 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

and fifty gunners. The enemy break from their in- 
trenchments Hke schoolboys. The resistance here is a 
mere feint. McPherson, on the Clinton Road, had 
defeated Johnstons entire army. Before the feeble- 
ness of the enemy's line here had revealed itself, 
Grant had directed a flank movement to be made 
near the Pearl River, and had advanced in that di- 
rection himself to supervise its execution, and, seemg 
at a glance the barrenness of the lines, rode into the 
enemy's works on a canter.'' 

Gen. Badeau relates a little incident which in- 
vests Grant's entrance into Jackson with peculiar 
interest : His son, a boy of thirteen, accompanied 
his father on the Vicksburg campaign ; and, as they 
were riding together towards the boundaries of the 
citj', '' the boy spurred on his horse, and galloped 
ahead of the army into the capital of Mississippi." 
The Fifteenth and the Sev^teenth, from diflerent 
directions, reached the court-house simultaneously. 
Grant occupies Johnston's quarters of the previous 
night, and sups upon the remnants of the Tuesday's 
feast with which the rebel general was celebrating 
the anticipated victory of Wednesday. 

Sherman is left to destroy the arsenals and railroad 
connections of Jackson ; but Grant immediateljj re- 
traces his steps, wheels his army to the westward, and 
by Friday night is concentrated at Bolton, in Pember- 
ton's front. That distracted- officer has not yet heard 
of Grant's triumph at Jackson, and, in compliance with 
Johnston's antiquated order, is moving to attack the 

1 Wc lost in this notion, 41 killed and 24'J wounded. The cneniv lost, ia 
killed, wounded, and prisoners, 845. Wc captured seventeen guns. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 249 

national commander's rear, sublimely unconscious that 
he has changed front, and will soon meet him face to 
face. When Grant ascertains that the enemy, at Ed- 
ward's Depot, is 25,000 strong, he recalls Sherman 
from Jackson, and orders up Blair from Auburn. There 
are three roads leading from Bolton to Edward's De- 
pot, which I shall designate as the southern, central, 
and northern. At Bolton, the northern is about two 
miles from the central, and the central about two 
miles from the southern ; but they converge as they 
approximate towards Edward's Depot. 

On Saturday morning, Blair and A. J. Smith move 
on the southern, Carr and Osterhaus by the central, 
and Hovey on the northern road, where he will be 
speedily supported by Logan and Crocker. Both 
Smith and Osterhaus start up the enemy's pickets at 
nearly the same moment, and before Pemberton has 
discovered the nature of the disturbance in his front. 
The startling revelations, however, brought in by his 
outposts, convince him of the propriety of forming 
line of battle and awaiting developments. Pember- 
ton occupies a cross-road at right angles \vith our 
advance, with Bowen in the centre, Stevenson on the 
left, and Loring on the right. Stevenson occupies 
Champion's Hill, a ridge some seventy-five feet above 
the level of the surrounding country. Its summit is 
as bare as the " bald head of venerable age," that the 
action of artillery may be unrestrained : but the ap- 
proaches up its precipitous acclivities and over the 
crest, except where batteries are stationed, present 
such entanglements as ravines, timber, and under- 
brush. His centre covers the middle road, by which 



250 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 



* 



Osterhaus is approaching, while his right is in the 
direct pathway of Blair and Smith. His front is four 
miles long, and leans entirely on Champion's Hill. 

Grant reaches Hovey, on the enemy's extreme left, 
by seven and a half o'clock ; and he immediately re- 
moves all the impediments in front of Logan's and 
Crocker's columns. He masses Hovey into regimental 
columns to assail the western side of the hill, and 
forms Logan perpendicular to Hovey, that he may 
address its northern face. 

The sharp firing between Hovey's skirmishers and 
the enemy's, which had continued during the morn- 
ing, grew into a pitched battle by eleven o'clock. 
McPherson has stationed two batteries which scalp the 
crown of the hill ; and, under their support, Hovey, 
after stubborn resistance, escalades the ridge, and car- 
ries eleven guns and three hundred prisoners : but 
his success merely drives the enemy six hundred 
yards, into a natural intrenchment cut through Cham- 
pion's Hill by the road, where, by incessant volleys, 
they defy all efforts of Hovey to dislodge them, and 
finally force him back, recapturing some of their lost 
guns. Quimby's brigade is forthwith hurried up to 
Hovey's support, and both barely hold the position 
which has been won by a terrible sacrifice. In Hea- 
ven's name ! where is McClernand? Our situation is 
too critical to be interesting, especially as the rebels 
have rallied a storming party to capture those batter- 
ies of McPherson, which are dealing damaging blows. 
All hail ! Logan comes to the rescue, and scatters the 
bafiled foe with slaughter. But, during this spasm of 
success, Hovey is again discomfited and gives ground, 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 251 

resolutely fighting. Where is McClernand ? He has 
been ordered up, and invoked by messenger after mes- 
senger. As there is no prospect of his appearance, 
Grant commands McPherson to swing all the troops 
he can collect against the enemy's right, that upon this 
hill we may not be overwhelmed by his entire Hhe : 
Blair and Carr and Osterhaus should have attacked 
it an hour ago. Hovey and Quimby, relieved slightly 
by this diversion, gain ground once more; but the 
enemy masses upon them again, and imperils our ten- 
ure of the hill. At this crisis, Stevenson's brigade of 
Logan's division, animated by the persistent struggle 
on the summit, moves forward at double-quick, and, 
plunging through a ravine, captures a battery of seven 
guns and hundreds of prisoners. Logan, too, has, uncon- 
sciously to himself, fought his way around the base of 
the hill into the enemy's rear, and stands there firmly 
planted, between them and Edward's Depot. A panic 
paralyzes the rebels ; and, just as they are struck by it, 
a national battery pOurs on them a devastating fire. 
Hovey and Quimby are nerved for another mighty 
effort, and, springing forward with overwhelming elan, 
roll the enemy from the hill. Strange as it may seem, 
fifteen thousand American troops stood upon the very 
edge of this combat without participating in it. The 
country in front of the enemy's line was thickly wood- 
ed ; and McClernand was held in check by the skir- 
mishing outposts, without once testing the opposition 
of the main line. While he was reconnoitrinor and 
manoeuvring, the weight of the enemy was falling 
upon McPherson and Hovej^ If his division had ex- 
hibited one tithe of the vigor of McPherson's, Pern- 



252 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

berton would have been forced to surrender on the 
field. 

Hovey occupied the ground he had so gloriously 
contributed to win, and slept amid the dead, wounded, 
and djdng, — the wreck and debris of Pemberton's 
arrfiy. The Twenty-fourth Iowa of his command is 
called the '• Methodist regiment : " the colonel and cap- 
tains, as well as the rank and file, are of that religious 
denomination. No,t one of tliejn had flinched in that 
dreadful grapple on the crest ; and now, amid their 
wounded and lifeless comrades, their enthusiasm re- 
mains unabated ; and, during the solemn hour of the 
night, the}^ waft over the hill of death the exultant 
strains of " Old Hundred," to words which offer up 
their oblation of gratitude to the great Author of 
victory : — 

" Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 
Praise him, all creatures here below ; 
Praise him on high, ye heavenly host ; 
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ! " 

There was not during the war a more complete and 
overwhelming rout. The junction of Pemberton and 
Johnston is forever postponed. The command of 
the country and its communications is transferred to 
Grant. The scattered armies of Mississippi are never 
reunited; six thousand men are hors de combat; 
thirty guns, with colors and trophies innumerable, are 
captured; Loring's division is cut off from the main 
body of fugitives, never to reach Vicksburg, but, 
roaming for weeks over the desolate and impoverished 
region, to drag its skeleton at last into the camp of 
Johnston. Parks of magnificent artillery are thrown 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 253 

into the swamps. The road from Champion's Hill to 
Edward's Depot is strewn with abandoned accoutre- 
ments. Broken columns of the foe court captivity. 
By midnight Pemberton is fifteen miles from the 
battle-field, with a mere remnant around him. The 
Seventeenth Corps follow the fugi.-ives for five miles. 
Carr and Osterhaus bivouac at Edward's Depot. 
Logan reaches within three miles of the Big-Black 
Bridge. Grant sleeps upon the^ porch of a rebel 
field-hospital.^ 

Before daylight on Sunday, Carr and Osterhaus are 
again on the enemy's track. They leave behind the 
broken hill-country, through which they have marched 
for the last two days, and descend upon a broad and 
open plain, which, except in its patches of forest, a^ 
fords no cover to the enemy. Where the road joins the 
Big Black, the river throws westward a semicircle; 
and from near its base, above the bridge, a stagnant 
bayou of twenty feet width emerges, and, after a cir- 
cuit of a mile, enters the river below the bridge, serv- 
ing as a chord to subtend the arc formed by (he 
river. The opposite bank is a succession of ridges. 
Behind this bayou, — the wet ditch of a regular for- 
tification, — the rebels have raised infantry parapets 
a mile in length, with openings for artillery. They 
abut on the river at the north, and at the south upon 
a cypress bank prolonged to the river. The whole 
constitutes the most formidable tete de pont which 

1 Grant's loss was four hundred and twenty-six men killed, eighteen hundred 
and forty-two wounded, and a hundred and eighty-nine missing. The ene- 
my's loss was between three and four thousand men in killed and wounded, and 
nearly three thousand prisoners. A rebel pamphlet at Champion's Hill puts 
the rebel loss at six thousand men and thirty cannon. 



254 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

can be contrived. It is garrisoned by four thousand 
ni^n, with twenty pieces of artillery. The approach 
is over an unprotected river-bottom, commanded by 
the bluffs on the western bank. Pemberton holds 
these works, awaiting the advent of Loring's lost 

corps. 

McClernand develops Osterhaus's division on the 
left of the road, and Carr's on the right, with Law- 
ler's brigade for extremity, exhibiting a splendid bat- 
tle-front for an engagement in the open field : but 
such dispositions, in such an emergency as this and 
against such an obstacle, betray a novice in military 
matters; for they can only provoke a futile scuffle 
between opposing artillery and skirmishers. This 
was the actual result in the present instance, and the 
affray threatened to be interminably prolonged. 

The day was intensely hot. Lawler, with his coat 
off, overwhelmed with combined heat and disgust, 
was meandering in a desultory way around the ene- 
my's left. He happens to discover, that, by masking 
his force in a copse near the river, he can reach a 
position from whence a rapid spring ma}^ carry the 
intrenchments. He acts upon the thought, and hides 
his frontiersmen, from Iowa and Wisconsin, experi- 
enced in Indian warfare, under the protection of the 
bushes. He here espies a break in the abatis with 
which the bayou has been furnished to add to its 
strength, and watches it from his retreat with des- 
perate intent. As soon as he discovers that the gar- 
rison in this part of the work is engrossed by the 
skirmisliers in front, he rouses up his brigade, watch- 
ing for the signal, and, quicker than it takes to tell it, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 255 

reaches the narrow defile through the bayou abatis. 
He passes it four abreast, plunges into the green and 
loathsome water, and with gleaming bayonet cleaves 
the rebel lines. ^ Emulating his courage, and inspired 
by his war-whoop, the brigades of Carr and Osterhaus 
clear the intervening space, and follow in the wake 
of Lawler. The garrison did not wait to receive 
them, but, in Pemberton's language, " broke and lied 
precipitately ; and it soon became a mere matter of 
sauve qui pent" 

There is now a race between oflftcers and men for 
the bridges : 'the enemy on the western bank, partici- 
pating in the panic, break them up before their com- 
rades have secured a pTissage. Gen. Green and oth- 
ers leap into the Big Black : some escape, but a large 
number are drowned. Regiments throw down their 
arms in the intrenchments, dreading our pursuincr 
fire ; one entire brigade surrenders. Every road to 
the stronghold is now thrown open.^ 

Lawler's charge was the most discomfiting single 
blow which was struck during the campaign. It over- 
whelmed the rebels with a kind of superstitious fear. 
Pemberton himself was so dazed by the exploit that he 
was afraid that Grant would flank Vicksburg, or throw 
a somerset over the intervening twelve miles before 
he himself could reach it by the road, with a twelve 
hours' start; for this was gained by the destruction of 
the bridges. This was the last battle before the siege. 
And thus Grant achieved the fifth labor which he 

1 Grant's loss at the battle of Black-river Bridge was twenty-nine killed 
and two hundred and forty-two wounded. The rebels never report*! their loss. 
We captured seventeen hundred and fifty-one prisoners, eighteen cannon, and 
five stands of colors. 



256 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

foresaw when this campaign was maturing in his mind 
at Milliken's Bend. 

6. Grant drives Pemherton, half annihilated in 
the field, behind the fortifications of Vickslurg. — 
Both the Thirteenth and Seventeenth Corps imme- 
diately transform themselves into engineers. Never 
was there so much bridge-building in one Sunday 
night. On bridges made of cotton bales, on bridges 
of felled trees, bridges of railroad ties, on bridges 
made of dilapidated cotton-gins and houses, the vic- 
torious army crosses the Big Black, and early on 
Monday morning are again in march for the " barred 
gateway " of the Mississippi. • 

Sherman reaches Bridgeport while the action at 
the bridge is raging, where he meets Blair with a 
pontoon train ; and, having put to flight a squad of 
rebels who are guarding the bank, crosses the river 
early on Monday morning. By nine o'clock he 
strikes' the Benton Road, which is but a few miles 
from Vicksburg. Grant joins his companion in arms 
at the Walnut Hills. To Sherman's lot had fallen, 
during this brilliant campaign, more of weary march 
than of inspiriting battle ; and his mind had nevei 
attained to that exhilaration which is one of the fruits 
of successful struggles upon hard-foiLght fields. Gen. 
Budeau, who I believe was an eye-witness of tin; 
scene, thus relates the interview between the two 
veteran commanders : " As they rode together up the 
flxrthest height, where it looks down on the Yazoo 
River, and stood upon the very bluff from which 
Sherman had been repulsed six months before, the 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE, ? 257 

two soldiers gazed for a moment on the long-wished- 
for goal of the campaign, — the high dry ground on 
the north of Vicksburg, and the base for their supplies. 
Sherman at last turned abruptly round, and exclaimed 
to Grant, ' Until this moment I never thought your 
expedition a success. I never could see the end 
clearly until now. But this is a campaign. This is 
a success, if we never take the town.' The other, as 
usual, smoked his cigar, and made no reply. The 
enthusiastic subordinate had seen the dangers of this 
venturesome campaign so vividly that his vision was 
dimmed for beholding success until it lay revealed 
on the banks of the Yazoo ; but then, with the mag- 
nanimity of a noble nature, he rejoiced in the vic- 
tories wliose laurels he could not claim. His chief 
had believed all along that he should accomplish 
what was now performed ; and the realization of this 
belief neither surprised nor elated the most equable 
of commanders." 

Sherman pushes his columns up the bluff. By night 
he clears the outworks of the enemy, capturing pris- 
oners and abandoned guns, and reaches within ritle- 
range of the principal fortifications. As McPherson 
leads forward the' Seventeenth crowned with all the 
glory of triumph, Grant directs him to invest the 
enemy's centre ; and McClernand, as he comes up, is 
ordered to environ the left. And thus the sixth labor 
is performed, which the heroic commander had im- 
posed upon himself and his noble army. 

Through what marches, toils, batteries, battles, has 
Gen. Grant conducted the complicated combinations 
which plant his foot in triumph upon this coveted 

17 



258 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

spot ! Can any one reflect upon the boldness and 
originality of the design thus far achieved without 
conceding to him strategical capacity ? I have already 
chanicterized it as of unparalleled audacity in con- 
ception, and executed with unexampled rapidity, in 
defiance of danger, obstacles, and labor. It has been 
compared by some to the renowned exploit of Fred- 
erick when he redeemed the disaster of Kolin by 
defeating Soubise at Rosbach, and Charles of Lorraine 
at Leuthen. Nor, as a specimen of strateg}^, does this 
campaign suffer by comparison with achievements of 
which the greatest modern master of the art of war 
has said, " that the}' were sufficient to entitle Fred- 
erick to a place in the first rank among generals." In 
his second Italian campaign, Napoleon turned upon 
Alvinzi and routed him, and then upon Provera and 
vanquished him ; and this has been likened to Grant's 
treatment of Pemberton and Johnston : nor does he 
suffer by the parallel. 

During this entire campaign, Grant endured all the 
privations and hardships of the humblest soldier in 
the ranks. I have already said that he was the first 
to land from the grim old iron-clad Benton, on the 
Mississippi. There, at the dilapidated plantation of 
Bruinsburg, the first man he encountered upon land- 
ing was a loyal American of African descent, who 
gave him trustworthy information respecting the 
I'outes into the interior. He was without a horse, 
and followed his colored guide to the heights, in order 
to reconnoitre the country. Many will be curious to 
know how a major-general of the army was equipped 
for the expedition. I am fortunately able to gratify 



■WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 259 

this curiosity. Mr. Washburne of Illinois was with 
Grant at the time ; and he informs us : " When he left 
his headquarters at Perkins's plantation for this great 
campaign, he did not take with him the trappings 
and paraphernalia so common to many military men. 
As all depended on quickness of movement, and as it 
was important to be encumbered with as little bag- 
gage as possible, he set an example to all under- him. 
He took with him neither a horse, nor an orderly, nor 
a servant, a camp-chest, an overcoat, nor a blanket, nor 
even a clean shirt. His entire baggage for six days 
— I was with him at that time — was a tooth-hrush. 
He fared like the commonest soldier in his command, 
partaking of his rations, and sleeping upon the ground, 
with no covering excepting the canopy of heaven. 
How could such a soldier fail to inspire confidence in 
an army, and to lead it to victory and to glory ? " ^ 

1 Hon. Mr. Washbume's speech on the bill reyiving the grade of lieutenant- 
general. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HE CAPTURES VICKSBURG. 
[May 21-Oct. 3, 1863.] 

MR. POLLARD, in his "Lost Cause," concedes 
that the fate of Vicksburs; was decided at 
Champion's Hill and the Big Black, and informs us 
that when Johnston heard of the last disaster he 
telegraphed to his subordinate that an ultimate sur- 
render was inevitable, and advised him to save the 
army, at least, by an immediate evacuation. The 
same author also furnishes us with Johnston's criti- 
cism upon Pemberton's tactics: "Had the battle of 
Baker's Creek not been fought. General Pemberton's 
belief that Vicksburg was his base rendered his ruin 
inevitable. He would still have been besieured, and 
therefore captured.' The larger force he would have 
carried into the lines would have added to and hast- 
ened the catastrophe. His disasters were due, not 
merely to his entangling himself with the advancing 
column?5 of a superior and unobserved enemy, but to 
his evident determination to be besieired in Vicks- 
burg, instead of manoeuvring to prevent a siege." 
He also gives us a glimpse of the interior of Vicks- 
burg on Sunday evening : The fugitive and disorderly 

2G0 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 261 

troops are pouring in, and the citizen-s behold with 
dismay the elated army which had marched forth to 
fight returning a wild and blasphemous mob, over- 
whelmed by shame and defeat. The most self- 
possessed and ttmperate city would have been dis- 
tracted by such an influx. But the normal state of 
Vicksburg is neither cool nor sedate : it is prone to 
chronic hysteria ; and on this occasion, so trying to 
the steadiest nerves, a mass of frenzied planters and 
their families are driven into the over-crowded mad- 
house by our advance, and the scene beggars de- 
scription as they inflame each other's delirium by the 
shouts, " Pemberton is a traitor ! The army has sold 
us out ! The Yankee butchers are coming!" The only 
sane and reliable part of the population, either mili- 
tary or civil, were the eight thousand troops who 
had been left behind in garrison, and were not yet 
demoralized by defeat, and haunted by palpable 
images of terror. They petition to be assigned to 
the post of danger ; they review the line of defences ; 
they restore the shivering fugitives to discipline and 
subordination ; they re-invigorate the will and cour- 
age of their drooping comrades ; they inspire a deter- 
mination to yield neither to assault nor famine. 

There was nothing to justify this unnatural alarm. 
The towering bluff is still unrocked by the storm ; 
still wind through it labyrinths of entangled ravines : 
the sharp and serrated ridges which Nature has sta- 
tioned around its borders have not yet yielded to 
the blast which tore up Champion's Hill; they are 
still crowned by forts, still guarded by guns, still 
connected by continuous intrenchments. What has 



262 LIFE OF GENEKAL GEANT. 

Vicksburg to fear from a mere assault ? If eight 
miles of enveloping fortresses, but five hundred yards 
apart, self-reliant, and supporting each other ; if em- 
bankments stretching from fortress to fortress, and 
the whole mighty barricade extendii% from the river 
on the north to the river on the south, and resting at 
both extremities on unassailable heights ; if the 
breastwork in front of the forts, and the gorges chan- 
nelled along the declivities, so difficult and entan- 
gled that with no enemy in front the foot-passenger 
can only ascend them by the aid of his hands ; if an 
abatis of trees felled outwards, and encircling the 
whole line within these outer works; if the dense 
forest which covers these fortified acres ; if a natu- 
ral situation which renders all celerity of movement 
and unity of efibrt upon the part of the assailants 
impossible, — if all these advantages combined can- 
not defend a town against any storming part}^, how- 
ever great in numbers or invincible in spirit, then its 
garrison does not belong to the race which fought at 
Donelson and Shiloh. In spite of his depletion in 
the field, Pemberton, as is abundantly demonstrated 
by the number which he surrendered, has still behind 
these barriers upwards of thirty thousand men, and 
more than a hundred pieces of artillery. He con- 
fronts Sherman with eight thousand veterans under 
Gen. Baldwin ; McPherson, with the survivors of the 
battle-fields under Smith and Forney ; and has twelve 
thousand left to assign to Gen. Lee, who, stationed 
on the Warrenton Heights, is directly opposed to 
McClernand. 

The geologic features of Vicksburg reach in a 



WHAT DID HE DO IIST THE CIVIL WAR ? 263 

modified form the ground occupied by Grant. The 
soil is sun-baked clay, cut up by water-courses ; it 
has rocky upheavals, rugged chasms, both covered 
and filled in with dense brakes of cane and willow. 
It is only penetrated by two or three forest roads. 
Any- advance against the fortifications in a cohering 
battle-line is altogether impracticable ; and the only 
attack feasible is by isolated columns, precluding all 
mutual support and co-operation, 

Haine's Bluff* has been evacuated, and our commu- 
nications re-opened with Milliken's Bend by way of 
the Yazoo, which is a great relief to an army which 
for ten days has been without regular supplies. Por- 
ter and his gunboats keep watch and ward of the line, 
and patrol the Mississippi. The enemy is frugal with 
his ammunition, and Pemberton's prohibition of skir- 
mishing and artillery practice enables Grant to select 
the most favorable sites for his batteries, and to force 
pickets and sharpshooters within annoying distance 
of the rebel gunners. The morale of the victorious 
army is so superb, that an assault upon Vicksburg 
cannot be denied to its impatience, and is an indul- 
gence needed, that it may cheerfully submit to the 
threatened dominion of the pickaxe and the spade 
The lions of Cybele were not yoked until the}^ were 
first foiled in their spring. The behavior of the rebel 
army at Big Black, its demoralized retreat, do not 
render preposterous sanguine expectations of the 
capture of Vicksburg; and the number of Pember- 
ton's forces were at this time largely under-estimated. 
On the first day of the investment. Grant orders his 
whole line as near to the enemy as practicable ; and, 



261 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

at a signal of three volleys from all guns in position, 
the whole of Sherman's front charges, for the purpose 
of reconnoitring the ground, and testing the strength 
of the resistance. Blair's division closes in upon the 
foe through the chasms and jungles which I have 
already described, reaching even the main works, 
and planting its colors upon the counterscarp of 
one of the irregular redoubts which crown the ridges. 
It is occupied for the day, and sharpshooters test the 
accuracy of their fire upon any rebel head which 
rises above the parapet. At night the troops are all 
withdrawn ; and nothing is gained by the movement, 
except an advanced station for artillery. 

The 22d of May is assigned for a general assault. 
The leaders of army corps and divisions survey all the 
roads and approaches from their respective fronts 
to within musket range of the hostile works. All 
watches are set by Gen. Grant's chronometer, that, at 
the appointed moment, from the extreme right of 
Gen. Sherman to the remotest left of Gen. McCler- 
nand, the immense semicircle of twelve miles may pro- 
ject from every point penetrating lead and iron upon 
the hideous length of fortifications which they envelop ; 
that, at the same second, furious columns, pointed 
with bristling spears innumerable, and clothed in 
thunder, by momentum irresistible may rend with 
a crash bastion and embankment. Skirmishers and 
sharpshooters are to accompany every detachment ; 
forlorn hopes with pontoons attend every party w^hich 
has creeks or wet ditches in its pathway; brigades 
are to be massed into columns of such front as the 
nature of the ground will admit ; not a musket is to 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAll ? 265 

be fired until the outer works are stormed. The aid 
of Commodore Porter is invoked ; and on the after- 
noon of the 21st he promptly despatches three of his 
iron-clads to engi-age the water batteries on the river 
front, and plants on the peninsula six of those im- 
plements which are the terror of beleaguered cities, — 
tremendous mortars, capable of throwing to a distance 
of three miles and a half an explosive bomb of thir- 
teen inches in diameter, and weighing two hundred 
and fifteen pounds. 

At three o'clock in the morning, around the vast 
circumference of our lines, the crack of the rifle rings 
like the first patter of a threatening tempest; the 
cannon booms from Haine's Bluff to Warrenton ; balls 
hurtle through the woods, and shells fly shrieking as 
when erst was lifted that imperial ensign in Pande- 
monium, and first were heard those deep-throated 
engines — 

" Whose roar 
Embowelled with outrageous noise the air. 
And all her entrails tore." 

But above the astounding base of Parrotts and field- 
batteries is heard the deeper thunder of the mortars 
sounding and resounding from the clifis ; and up, up, 
with the train of a meteor, with the quaver of ten 
thousand organs, soars the black terror a mile and a 
half into the placid depths of air, and then, curving 
with majestic slowness, dives faster than light into 
the treasonable ramparts. Three, four, five, at once 
may be counted, tracing fiery parabolas on the dark 
background of the sky, or swooping down like an 
eagle on its quarry. Such a bombardment was never 



266 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

before heard by the astonished rebels, who now bur- 
row in the dens and caves of the earth, and tunnel 
those subterranean caverns which were their dwell- 
ing-place during the siege. It is the most protracted 
artillery-storm which is endured during those terrible 
months, continuing until eleven o'clock in the fore- 
noon of the 22(1; and its uninterrupted devastation, 
as well as the incessant cannonade from our batteries 
and the fatal volleys of our sharpshooters, entirely 
divert the attention of the garrison from our storming 
parties, which are now forming upon every avenue. 

But all this is mere prelude to the main drama of 
this ensanguined day. I will now pass rapidly round 
our entire investment, from McClernand on Warren- 
ton Heights to Sherman near Haine's Bluff on the 
"Walnut Hills, and designate the perilous roads by 
which each of the army corps must advance, and the 
position of each of their heroic storming parties, that 
you may see through what extremities of peril, and 
by what deeds of daring, the waters of the Mississippi 
were rescued from rebel thraldom. Before even 
reaching McClernand's army corps, I must notice 
that McArthur's division, which is advancing this 
morning from the Big Black, has been met by an 
order to move up the heights at Warrenton, and pene- 
trate into the city as far as impediments will permit. 

From McClernand's line, a ravine first presents it- 
self, which pursues a general direction towards the 
point where the Jackson Road enters Vicksburg 
through a bastioned work ; but it is swept through its 
entire course, both by artillery and musketry. At 
nine o'clock, Carr occupies the ravine with Lawler's 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 267 

brigade, — which did the deed of derrhig-do at Big- 
Black Bridge, — and with Laudrum's, Benton's, Bur- 
bridge's commands. As you advance farther to the 
right, a gully is seen, which, affording partial cover, 
runs within twenty yards of the nearest intrencli- 
ment ; and, at nine o'clock, this has been seized by 
A. J. Smith's division. The cross ravines which cut 
these two approaches are steep and rugged, but not 
heavily timbered like those which intersect the paths 
of McPherson and Sherman. The siege-artillery of 
thirty-pound Parrotts is with this army corps, and in 
this morning's duel has breached the enemy's works 
in MoClernand's front, and silenced two of their guns. 
The Thirteenth, in grim and desperate earnestness, 
thus await the signal for assault. 

From the woods where McPherson's army corps 
lies, the Jackson Road emerges, and, following a mean- 
dering path over a crest between two deep ravines, 
strikes the rebel centre at a point where the forti- 
fications conform to the irregularities of the cliff, 
which is here three hundred and thirty feet above 
the river.. These lofty works, not only control the 
Jackson Road, but hatchel it with criss-cross fires. At 
nine o'clock, upon this perilous route, lies Leggett's 
brigade, supported by John E. Smith's, both in regi- 
mental columns with platoon fronts. Stevenson's 
brigade lies in the ravines which open to the south, 
and his battalions propose to move in battle-line. 
This is the storming party which McPherson marshals 
to its desperate morning task. 

The Grave-yard Road emerges from the forest in 
Sherman's front, and crossing a deep ravine, and run- 



LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 



ning along the crown of an inferior ridge, enters the 
gorge of a redoubt at the north-eastern angle of the 
defences. At nine o'clock, at the head of this road, 
where it is still covered by woods, lies Blair's 'divis- 
ion, with Tattle's for a support ; and, at half a mile to 
the left, Steele is massed, and directs his attack 
against a battery at the mouth of a creek which en- 
ters the Mississippi at the north-western angle of Vicks- 
burg. But it is upon the storming party posted upon 
the road that our interest concentrates. It consists of a 
forlorn hope of a hundred and fifty men, furnished 
with poles and boards for crossing the dry ditch of 
the redoubt ; and close in their rear are the bris^ades 
of Ewing, Kirby Smith, and Giles Smith. You can- 
not look at this detachment without a premonitory 
phudder. These are the bold men whom Sherman 
sends on an errand of death to-day. 

Yes, from right to left, before all these storming 
parties of the three army corps, there is death in 
every breath of air. Roads, gulley, ravine, are all 
swept by death. Every approach but one is fairly 
deluged with grape and canister ; and not one reaches 
even the frowning outposts without crossing deep 
and rugged passes, semi-precipitous both in descent 
and ascent, and entangled with every embarrassment. 
An assault is to be made to-day which rivals in con- 
summate boldness any which Saragossa or Badajos 
saw. Are these men of mere mortal mould, who for 
flag and fatherland thus leap into the jaws of death 
as into the open arms of blooming joy ? 

Grant is stationed on an eminence, near McPher- 
pon's front, which commands a view of the operations 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 269 

of all three of the army corps. The blast of the bugle 
gives the preconcerted signal; and, at ten o'clock 
precisely, along the whole line, the various storming 
parties leap forward at double-quick. Sherman ad- 
vances five batteries to a ridge, which assail with 
concentric fire 'the north-western redoubt. The for- 
lorn hope, armed with rafters and planking alone, fol- 
lowed closely by Ewing, Kirby and Giles Smith, clear 
the intervening space, and are for a moment en- 
gulfed by a ravine in their front. Loaded with timber 
and arms they plunge into its depths, and scramble 
through the j ungle up its steep ascent within eighty 
yards of the enemy, and are now seen rushing by 
the flank upon the nearest salient. All the cannon 
descend upon them with a plunging fire. The ad- 
vanced centurion staggers and wavers before the 
storm ; but, crowded on by the heavier columns, it 
circles round the nearest angle, directed to the gorge. 
Instantly, within the works, line upon line of rebel 
infantry spring to their feet, and deliver an over- 
whelming fire, which halts and temporarily drives 
back the pontoniers. Ewing still presses them on. 
They fling rafters and planks over the ditch : they 
cross it on the bastion's left, and plant their colors on 
the slope beneath the parapet, where they are par- 
tially screened from death. The volley of the in- 
fantry now devours the head of Ewing's columns, and 
hurls its broken body behind such cover as each man 
finds for himself It next bursts upon Giles Smith, 
and hurls him down a side ravine ; and now, culmi- 
nating upon Kirby Smith alone, throws him over a 
spur, where, with Ewing's remnants, he rains bullets 



270 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

upon the parapet, without being able to reach the 
heavy lines of infantry which blockade the gorge. 
Steele, on his line of attack, fares no better. The 
wrinkled and timbered reo:ion in his^ front breaks his 
columns into squads. Four hundred yards of approach, 
under the fire of concentrated batteries, converts the 
squads into separate bushwhackers, who still face the 
withering fire, but throw organization to the winds. 
By two o'clock, both division leaders report to Sher- 
man that the enemy's position is stistained by too 
much determination to be mastered by their com- 
mands. 

There was no hope for McPherson from the start. 
Of what avail are regimental columns and battalions 
in line, where the nature of the ground instantly dis- 
solves all banded corps into a mere mob of brave 
men? "What could columns or lines, even if they 
moved with the precision of the parade-ground, avail 
against armed cliffs upwards of three hundred feet 
high, but dash like waves against a mountainous 
coast ? Logan's brigade succeeded in reaching the 
tortuous pathway between the two ravines ; but if 
each soldier had been an invulnerable iron man, — 
like Sir Artegal's Talus, — the columns would have 
been battered off by the mere weight of the metal. 
Nor did Stevenson fare better in his line approach 
over — what it is broad irony to name " the fields." 
He reaches the top of the slope, and presents his long 
blue ribbon to the whirlwind of shot, when it is im- 
mediately rent and torn into shreds and ravellings. 
At the appointed hour McClernand's storming party 
advance, encountering all the horrors of war on their 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? 271 

imperilled routes. Protected from artillery fire by 
the giilley, Smith crowded close to the enemy's 
breastworks, but found himself confronted by infan- 
try parapets, which broke into fragments every col- 
umn exposed to its fire. Lawler, followed by his 
supports, wormed warily his way along the ravine, as 
if he w^ere moving upon an Indian ambush, xuitil he 
finally reached its debouch. His brigade, with the 
Twenty-second Iowa, sprung, with the dash and im- 
petuosity which disembowelled the iete de j^ont, over 
a rebel ditch, over a rebel breastwork ; and, as in 
Sherman's front, a Union flag was planted on the 
counterscarp of the redoubt. Then ensues a close 
scrimmage with hand grenades, cold steel, and 
with repeaters, breast to breast, head to head, the 
rebels attempting to dispossess us of the breastworK ; 
but the stout Twenty-second hold on, supported by 
the sharpshooters in the ravines and bordering thick- 
ets. They were joined by an Illinois regiment, which 
placed its standard also upon the exterior slope. Be- 
hind this work were others which completely con- 
trolled it; and the brave Westerners contented them- 
selves with their lodgement on its face, and shot 
every rebel who ventured over the parapet to seize 
their colors, and maintained their capture with daunt- 
less heroism during the day. Osterhaus and Hovey,. 
by independent manoeuvres, succeeded in reaching 
within "four hundred 3^ards of the intrenchment, 
where they recoiled like the rest, but clung tena- 
ciously to every tenable point, and fired unceasingly 
from every cover and chasm. McArthur, too, on the 
Warrenton Heights, bore up against a direct and en- 



2T2 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

filading fire, bent upon entering Vicksburg ; but was 
halted, like the rest, by a resistance which was insur- 
mountable. 

Thus, along the w^iole front of our investment, the 
nature of the ground prohibited the self-sustaining 
impetus and co-operation of organized bodies. Frag- 
mentary detachments, though persistent in their strug- 
gles, individual courage and adventure worthy of 
paladins or demigods, availed naught against this 
Gibraltar of the West. In no instance was a storming 
party driven wilted from the field, but every attack 
by corps was foiled. Column and line alike met the 
shock with a terrible sacrifice of life, strewing the en- 
emy's front with their dead and wounded, only to be 
hurled back into the woods and ravines, broken but un- 
dismayed. The brigades of Sherman and McClernand 
surmounted all the disheartening obstacles of their 
approach, planted regimental flags upon the exterior 
slopes of fortresses, but only pierced the hide of the 
monster, and were as far from its heart as when in 
the morning they first poised their spears. 

In its main purpose, this bloody day's work was a 
failure. Grant was baffled in an undertaking which, 
considering the comparative numbers of the assailant 
and the assailed, was never attempted in modern 
warfare against fortifications of such strength. He 
was thwarted in an adventure which Wellino-ton him- 
self never dared to initiate in the Peninsula cam- 
paign, with the odds against him, and which Grant 
would not have essayed but for the unreasonable 
demands of popular sentiment at home. By two 
o'clock, he had ordered both Sherman and McPherson 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 273 

to desist from the impracticable design, and along 
their fronts the tempest was entirely lulled. 

While McPherson's corps was in the red-hot fur- 
nace of war, Grant, who was upon his lines, received 
a message from McClernand which announced that 
he was hotly engaged, vigorously pressed, and asked 
for a supporting charge from McPherson, and also 
for re-enforcements. As McPherson was already at- 
tacking the precipice in his front with more than 
mortal energy, Grant contented himself with return- 
ing McClernand the answer, "If your advance is 
weak, draw upon your reserves." But when Law- 
ler's brigade had carried the slope, and set up their 
ensign, McClernand despatched to Grant the still 
more flurried missive, " We are hotly engaged with 
the enemy. We have part possession of two forts, and 
the stars and stripes are waving over them. A vig- 
orous push ought to be made all along the line." 
Grant had seen the operations of McClernand's corps. 
He had beheld the rebuff of all his organized columns, 
and had noticed, too, the flags upon the slope, and 
suspected that the commander of the Thirteenth was 
exaggerating his success. But Grant was induced by 
the liveliness of the message to move forward, and 
consult McPherson, when he was met by a note from 
McClernand, couched in stronger language, louder 
in its vaunting tone, more earnest in pleading the 
pressure upon all his troops, and requesting that 
McArthur should be concentrated upon the occupied 
fort. Grant was constrained to heed this ex2:)licit 
and direct information from a general in the field, 
and, with many misgivings, ordered both Sherman 

18 



274 LIFE or GENERAL GKANT. 

and McPherson to renew the attack, and the latter 
to re-enforce McClernand with a brigade. ^Ye paid 
for the flurry and excitement of this miUtary novice — 
foisted upon the army by political machinations — with 
hundreds of lives. Sherman pushed Mower's brigade 
into the same blast which in the morning had deci- 
mated Ewing's, with no other result than to prove 
that death hath no terrors for resolute souls. McPher- 
son again moved forward against the precipice, only 
to duplicate his casualties ; and the brigade which he 
sent to the support of the Thirteenth Army Corps, 
after a march of two miles, found their own troops 
recalled, sustained the whole brunt of battle which 
this bombast had rekindled, and left its accomplished 
commander. Col. Bloomer, dead in front of the re- 
doubt which McClernand had reported as captured. 
But McClernand was still unsatisfied. After the en- 
gagement he issued a magniloquent "order" of 
congratulation to the Thirteenth, and arrogated to it 
all the achievements which partially redeemed the 
disasters of the day, disparaged the performances of 
the associated corps, and attacked by innuendoes 
Grant himself This bulletin to Buncombe was pub- 
lished, of course, by North-western papers, and, in prog- 
ress of time, reached the commanders of the Fif- 
teenth and Seventeenth Corps. Sherman forthwith 
addressed to Gen. Grant a letter in which he thus 
characterized this remarkable " order : " " The docu- 
ment under question is not technically a letter or 
report, and, though styled an order, is not an order. 
It orders nothing, but is in the nature of an address 
to soldiers, manifestly designed for publication for 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 275 

ulterior political purposes. It perverts the truth to 
the ends of flattery and self-glorification, and contains 
many untruths, among which is one of monstrous 
falsehood." McPherson wrote a letter to Gen. Grant, 
in which he expressed his views of the order as un- 
generous in its tenor, with insinuation and crimina- 
tions against the other corps, at manifest variance 
with the facts, and says, "After a careful perusal of 
the order, I cannot help arriving at the conclusion 
that it was written more to influence public opinion 
at the North, and impress the public mind with the 
magnificent strategy, superior tactics, and brilliant 
deeds of the major-general commanding the Thir- 
teenth Army Corps, than to congratulate his troops 
upon their well-merited successes. 

" There is a vain-gloriousness about the order, an 
ingenious attempt to write himself down the hero, 
the master-mind giving life and direction to the 
military operations in this quarter, inconsistent with 
the high-toned principle of the soldier sans peur et 
sans reproche" 

The manifesto proved more fatal at the breech 
than at the muzzle. It was the last of a series of 
assumptions of independence and superiority, amount- 
ing to insubordination, which McClernand had mani- 
fested from the commencement of the Vicksburg 
campaign. Its publication was in direct violation of 
a general order, issued by the president, and which, 
moreover, required that ofienders against it should 
be reported for dismissal. It moved even Grant's 
placable disposition to communicate the transgression 
of McClernand to the general-in-chief ; and the result 



276 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

of this fortunate disobedience was an order relie^g 
McClernand of the command of the Thirteenth Army 
Corps. 

The 22d of May cost ns three thousand in killed 
and wounded. It is useless to attempt to disguise 
the horrors of war. The aspirant of mere military 
glory may well be appalled at the singular conjunc- 
ture of circumstances which now induced- Pemberton 
to tender an armistice to Grant. The scantiness of 
foraiire within his lines had constrained him to turn 
loose his half-starved mules upon our front, where 
some had died from hunger, and some had been shot 
by our soldiers. Our dead and wounded were scattered 
for eight miles along his embankments- and the 
apprehension that a pestilence might be bred by the 
mingled decomposition of men and mules moved 
his sentiments of humanity to beat a parley for 
temporary peace. The offer was gladly accepted by 
Grant ; and while our surgeons were carefully 
tending the wounded, and our burial patties were 
bestowing a soldier's grave upon our noble dead, the 
garrison were burning the carcasses of mules, and 
tolerating the interment of the dissolving images of 
their Maker. Hamlet is obliged to borrow the aid 
of his imagination, and to trace the ashes of Alexan- 
der to the bung of a beer-barrel, in order to point 
a moral upon the vanity of human ambition ; but 
this genuine scene upon a battle-field suggests a more 
impressive homily upon the hollow pageantries and 
pomps of military grandeur, and responds with more 
emphasis to the Prince of Denmark's exclamation. 
" To what base uses may we return, Horatio ! " 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 277 

Neither personal cravings for military renown, nor 
the unhallowed aspirations of national aggrandize- 
ment, can offer the feeblest apology for such horrors : 
the defence of a nation's life, the preservation of the 
most beneficent Government from an anarchy more 
terrible than war itself, can be their only justification. 

The arrival of Lauman's division enabled Grant 
to commence the siege with forty thousand men. 
Before it had proceeded far, he was re-enforced by 
twenty-one thousand from his own department ; and, 
in the course of three weeks, he was made complete 
master of the situation by the arrival of Herron's 
array corps from Schofield's commana, and by two 
•divisions of the Ninth Army Corps under Gen. Parke, 
s\velling the aggregate of his forces to seventy-five 
thousand men. 

I have already said that Sherman held the Walnut 
Hills on our extreme right with three divisions, — 
Tuttle's, Steele's, and Blair's ; that McPherson united 
with Sherman's left, and with his three divisions — 
Hovey's, McArthur's,- Quimby's — extended our in- 
vestment along the enemy's centre ; that McClernand 
with three divisions — Smith's, Carr's, and Oster- 
haus's — continued it to the Warrenton Heights ; and 
I have now to add that Herron with three divisions 
prolonged it to tlfe Mississippi River, thus swinging 
around Vicksburg a vast arc of twelve miles' sweep. 

The main problems presented by the siege were, 
from different points of this immense semicircle to 
advance artillery ensconced in screened batteries 
within striking distance of the enemy's works ; to 
cover every approach to them from our front, that 



278 LIFlJ OF GENERAL GEANT. 

tlie ingress and egress of our soldiers might not be 
extra hazardous ; to unite these approaches by such 
connecting parallels^ as will permit the safe inter- 
communication of our entire army; to place the 
heads of columns under cover, and so near the enemy's 
line that the interval can be passed without the 
destruction of our men ; to protect sharpshooters so 
close to the rebel front that they may contribute 
their aid to all these principal objects. 

In describing the assault, I have already indicated 
the nature of the ground between us and the 
enemy. I have directed particular attention to 
two highways, a ravine, a gulley, a railroad, all 
death-swept in every direction, by which the storm- 
ing parties endeavored to reach the hostile fortres^^es 
on the 22d of May. • Grant cannot repeat that 
calamitous experiment, but must accomplish his 
object by the sure but insidious advances of a siege. 
He therefore invokes military science to throw such 
a shield and buckler over these perilous pathwaj's 
that his soldiers may march up to the enemy's guns, 
and stare into his eyes, without being the target of 
■ his shot. " Impossible ! " There is no such word as 
" impossible " in the engineer's vocabulary ; and 
Grant, after more than forty years' search, has not 
yet found "can't" in his dictionary. The impos- 
sibility will be overcome. 

IIow shall I describe the devices by which the 
severe task was accomplished ? It would prolong this 
volume to a folio to minutely relate them. Without 
detailing the enormous labor of our troops day by 

1 A wide trench for communication between the approaches of the besiegers. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 279 

day; without specifying the ingenious expedients of 
the different commanders; without journalizing the 
peculiar toil and peril of every night and every^'day; 
without following step by step the majestic advance 
of eighty-nine batteries with their stupendous 
accompaniments of trenches and parallels; without 
dwelling upon the military skill and science with 
which the enemy incessantly opposed this irresistible 
progress, — the counter-intrenchments, cannonades, 
pickets, sharpshooters, hand-grenades, mines, with 
which he assailed every aggression of this strangling 
coil upon his eight miles of fortification, — I must coi> 
tent myself with summing up in a single paragraph 
the grand result of forty days of such labor as^'built 
the Pyramids and tunnelled the Alps. Grant protects 
these natural approaches with so much engineering 
skill, — channeling artificial ways safe from hostile 
fire, and in some cases roofed by gabions,Mhrough 
precipitous crests, up and down the acclivities of 
rocky ridges, through the Graveyard and Jackson 
road-beds, along the railroad cut, the Walnut Hills, 
the Warrenton Heights, — that on the 1st of July he 
has in cannon-proof earth-works, within the easiest i 
range of the enemy's fortifications, two hundred and 
twenty cannon. His saps^ are within a few feet of 
the enemy's ditch; and, at ten different points, he can 
place under cover the heads of his divisions, within 
an average distance of two hundred yards of the 
rebel lines, and with means of debouching on com- 
paratively level ground. 

1 A basket made of twigs and saplings, and filled with earth, cylindrical in 
form and open at both ends, about nine feet long by two wide; and used to 
shelter men from an enemy's fire. 

2 A near approach to a fortified place. 



280 LIFE OF GENEEAIi GBANT. 

Nor were these the only means adopted to break 
the barriers which held in subjection the channel of 
the Mississippi. An annoying redan stopped the 
progress of the sappers in Logan's front. With immense 
labor he moles his way through the rugged earth 
beneath it, and, from the main subterranean passage, 
tunnels under the redan to the right and left, and 
hides in these cavities twenty-two hundred pounds 
of gunpowder. In the afternoon of the 25th of 
June a heavy column of troops lies covered in 
Logan's approaches, and the artillery opens from every 
battery which, bears. At three o'clock in the after- 
noon, a vivid glare for a moment dazzles the vision : 
an explosion which outroars the cannon jars the 
earth. Rebel soldiers are tossed high in air ; the redan 
is torn from its rock-bound foundations ; a crater, laro-e 
enough to hold two regiments, occupies its site. Our 
columns spring forward into the chasm with the 
Northern " cheer," and are received with the Southern 
"yell," and, after a hand-to-hand light, force the rebels 
back to interior parapets, with which they had pro- 
vided themselves in anticipation of the catastrophe. 
For weeks the crater is the prize for which the belli- 
gerents contend. Pemberton meets our mines with 
countermines, and perils under the earth are as 
common during this beleaguering month as perils 
above it. 

To Grant, the siege is forty days and nights of 
watching and sleeplessness. While superintending all 
these approaches, he is continually threatened by the 
efforts of Johnston to raise the siege. It is no unrea- 
sonable apprehension, that he may succeed in placing 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 281 

the besiegers between two hostile armies; and, while 
meeting one in the field, Grant may be overwhelmed 
by a sally of thirty thousand men from the strong- 
hold. In addition to his other labors, Grant constructs 
a vast line of countervallation from the Yazoo to the 
Big Black, which presents to Johnston the same 
obstacles in reaching us which we have in entering 
Vicksburg. He fortifies Haine's Bluff, which becomes 
now an outwork of as much importance to Grant as 
it was formerly to Pemberton. He despatches Oster- 
haus to the tete de iiont on the Big Black, and orders 
him to hold that line against all enemies. He sends 
Blair to scour the delta and jungles of the Yazoo, 
that no foe may lurk in their recesses. He dis- 
seminates orders to all the division commanders to 
hold a part of their troops in readiness to march at 
a moment's notice. He stimulates their vigilance 
with an incessant stream of admonitory telegrams. 
He sequestrates in transitu all the despatches of 
Johnston. He instructs Sherman to attack him within 
fifteen miles, at least, from Vicksburg. He watches 
every courier of Pemberton with the eye of a falcon. 
He thwarts an attempt of the garrison to escape by 
boats. He invokes the vigilance of Commodore Por- 
ter. By a resolution which surmounts all dangers 
which are present, by a watchfulness which meets in 
advance all which are imminent, by providing 
beforehand for every contingency which human pre- 
science can anticipate, and by a presence of mind 
which meets unforeseen contingencies as if they were 
embraced by his original plan, by the confidence in 
himself generated by this wakeful superintendence, 



282 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

— ^^he awaits serenely the hour when the " barred gate- 
way" of the Mississippi shall sullenly yield to his 
ripened combinations. 

While Grant is concentrating his two hundred and 
twenty guns upon its front, and Porter's squadron is 
thundering against its back, scantiness, famine, havoc, 
are serviceable auxiliaries in the interior of the fortress. 
The ammunition is so nearly exhausted that every 
grain of powder left in our trenches is carefully gath- 
ered up, and the cartridge-box of our dead preferred 
to all trophies ; percussion caps only reach the garri- 
son by smugglers, disguised in the national uniform, 
who throw them over the trenches in canteens. Pem- 
berton's wails to Johnston for relief are piteous to read. 
Fodder was long since exhausted, and the war-charger 
of the general is fed on husks. All the beef, cattle, 
flour, tobacco, beans, held by non-combatants, have 
been already impressed by the commissary ; and the 
troops subsist upon half-rations, while the citizens 
starve. Quarter-rations soon become the order of the 
day. Mule-meat is a luxury, and they covet those 
carcasses which were offered as ^placebo to the pes- 
tilence. Ptound shot and shell incessantly assail the 
town. Seven mortars by night and day drop incen- 
diary and explosive shell into the dwellings, and the 
unwholesome caves which they have burrowed into 
the cliffs are the sole refuge of the inhabitants from 
omnipresent destruction. Buildings are destroyed, 
hospitals demolished ; the old and the infirm, the 
women and the children, are scourged by the enraged 
national arm, which the treasonable leaders have so 
flagrantly provoked. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 283 

The hope of succor from Johnston is ah^eady a van- 
ished illusion. Haine's Bluff is impregnable ; Big Black 
is held by an army ; clouds of cavalry envelop the 
country, and patrol every avenue. The war creeps 
nearer and nearer : artillerymen are upon every crest ; 
sharpshooters are in every ravine ; every morning 
discloses new breastworks, and new batteries like 
mushrooms spring up every night. The approaching 
circles of fire, like the waves of the ocean, move those 
-in advance, and are moved by those behind ; and 
" Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther," is power- 
less to arrest their march. The rank and file have 
been canvassed by officers, and refuse to go out and 
fight. A definitive treaty has been ratified between 
the rebel and national pickets at one point of the 
line, which provides for the absolute cessation of hos- 
tilities by night, and authorizes our sappers, without 
even the protection of a sap-roller, to lead their ap- 
proaches up to the angles of the redoubts. Civilities 
are constantly interchanged between the belligerent 
outposts. Deserters flock to our trenches. The sol- 
diers of the two armies not only brag of their prowess, 
and chaff each other across the parapets, but meet 
by night, and drink at the same well of refreshing 
water between the two lines, exchange rations and 
quids, discuss the abilities of the two commanders, 
wrangle and jar, but use no sharper weapon than the 
tongue, and part as if the secret truce was authorized 
by orders from their respective headquarters. 

Grant wants no Daniel to inform him that the end 
is near. He does not even wish to be befriended by 
the torpor and irresolution of the garrison -, for he is 



284 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

fully prepared to enforce his claim upon Vicksburg 
by his might. I have already recounted the progress 
of his approaches up to the 1st of July ; by the 3d, the 
pickaxe and the spade have spent all their strength, 
and the cannon and the musket are about to resume 
their undivided sway. Grant has appointed the 6th 
of July for the assault. But what is this ? At ten 
o'clock on the morning of the 3d, a white flag sud- 
denly appears upon the precipice in McPherson's front, 
heralding the approach of Gen. Bowen and Col. Mont- 
gomery, the aide of Pemberton, with a communica- 
tion for the general-in-chief It proposes an armistice, 
and the appointment of three commissioners by each 
commander to arrange terms of surrender, in order 
to " spare the effusion of blood." Gen. Grant replies, 
that " the ^ effusion of blood ' can be ended at any 
time you may choose, by the unconditional surrender 
of the city and garrison. Men who have shown so 
much endurance and courage as those now in A^icks- 
burg will always challenge the respect of an adversary, 
and, I can assure you, will be treated with all the re- 
spect due to prisoners of war. I do not favor the prop- 
osition of appointing commissioners to arrange the 
terms of capitulation, because I have no terms other 
than those indicated above." 

Gen. Bowen and his companion were received by 
Gen. A. J. Smith. The rebel ofi&cers expressed a strong 
wish to see Gen. Grant ; but, when this was respect- 
fully declined, they requested that he would appoint 
the time and place for an interview with Pemberton. 
To this Gen. Grant readily assented, and named three 
o'clock in the afternoon, between McPherson's front 
and the enemy's intrenchments. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 285 

A sturdy old oak which had weathered the storms 
of centuries stood upon the hillside, midway between 
the embattled lines, with its midsummer burden of 
leaves torn and blasted, and even its branches splin- 
tered by passing shot. It had been appropriately 
selected as the place of rendezvous. The.crack of the 
rifle, the boom of the cannon, are hushed in deference 
to a negotiation upon which such weighty issues hang. 
Soldiers of both armies swarm the confronting parapets, 
as if they would read their fate upon the impenetrable 
faces of the two commanders. The preconcerted gun 
echoes and re-echoes from the cliff The day is sultry. 
The clouds hang lowering. Not even the rustle of a leaf, 
nor the fall of a raindrop, breaks the ominous silence 
of the hour. The general-in-chief is already on the 
spot, attended by McPherson, Ord, Smith, and several 
members of his staff It is noticed, that, in honor of 
the occasion, Grant has thrown off the blouse which 
he habitually wore during the siege, and donned a 
weather-stained .frock-coat, decorated with the tar- 
nished insignia of his rank ; and he even dignified 
the ceremonious interview by wearing a regulation 
sword, which had not appeared in public for months. ' 
Gen. Pemberton presents himself, accompanied by 
Bowen and Montgomery. The tall and lithe figure 
of the Confederate officer is incased in a fresh suit of 
gray, with all the decorations of his rank. As he ap- 
proaches, his full black beard, his bronzed complexion, 
his regular profile, his dark locks, his deep-set black 
eyes, with the burdened expression which they habit- 
ually wore, arrest the earnest gaze of the spectators. "^ 
He was a West-Point graduate, and had risen to the 



286 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

rank of major in our army. He was a Northerner 
by birth. • He took chivalry by inoculation, and, of 
course, had the disease with greater severit}^, revers- 
imr the rule which governs kindred maladies. Pollard 
describes him as " of a captious and irritable nature, a 
narrow mind, — a slave of the forms and fuss of the 
schools;" as "one of those men whose idea of war 
began with a bureau of clothing and equipment, and 
ended with a field-day and dress-parade." There was 
sufficient hauteur in his bearing, but none of the in- 
civility which he exhibited the next day. The two 
generals advanced and shook hands. Pemberton im- 
mediately asked, " What terms of capitulation will be 
allowed me?" — "The same," said Grant, "which I 
expressed in my letter of this morning." — " If that is 
your ultimatum," replied Pemberton, " the conference 
might as well terminate, and hostilities be immediately 
resumed." — "So be it," said Grant, and turned away. 
Both Bowen and Montgomery were disappointed 
at this abrupt termination of the conversation, and 
proposed that two of .the subordinates present should 
agree upon the basis of a capitulation, and report it 
for ratification to their respective chiefs ; and, as the 
proposition received a tacit assent, he selected Gen. 
A. J. Smith, and withdrew for imparlance. Grant and 
Pemberton had, in the mean time, been drawn together, 
and were promenading within two hundred yards of. 
the rebel parapet. The whole party soon rendez- 
voused at the oak, when Bowen reported the basis, as 
if it had received the assent of his collea<2;ue in the 
negotiation : " Vicksburg will capitulate, on condition 
that the garrison shall march out with the honors of 



WHAT DID HE DO IJST THE CIVIL WAR? 287 

war, carrying with them side-arms, muskets, and field- 
artillery, but surrendering the heavy battery guns." 
The projDosal was immediately rejected by Grant with 
a smile of derision. It was finally agreed that the 
armistice should continue until morning, and that in 
the course of the evening Grant should forward to Pem- 
berton in writing the terms of capitulation. In com- 
pliance with this promise, Grant addressed Pemberton 
the following communication : — 

" In conformity with the agreement of this after- 
noon, I will submit the following proposition for the 
surrender of the city of Vicksburg, public stores, &c. 
On your accepting the terms proposed, I will march 
in one division, as a guard, and take possession at eight 
o'clock to-morrow morning. As soon as paroles can 
be made out, and signed by the officers and men, you 
will be allowed to march out of our lines ; the officers 
taking with them their regimental clothing, and staff, 
field, and cavalry officers one horse each. The rank 
and file will be allowed all their clothing, but no other 
property. 

" If these conditions are accepted, any amount of 
rations you may deem necessary can be taken from 
the stores you now have, and also the necessary cook- 
ing utensils for preparing them ; thirty wagons, also, 
counting two horse or mule teams as one. You will 
be allowed to transport such articles as cannot be 
carried along. The same conditions will be allowed 
to all sick and wounded officers and privates as fast 
as they become able to travel. The paroles for these 
latter must be signed, however, whilst officers are 
present authorized to sign the roll of prisoners." 



288 LIFE OF GENEllAL GRANT. 

Pemberton accepted the terms contained In the 
forefroino; letter with these modifications : " At ten 
o'clock in the morning to-morrow, I propose to evacu- 
ate the w^orks in and around Vicksburg, and to sur- 
render the city and garrison under my command, by 
marching out with my colors and arms, stacking them 
in front of my present lines, after which you will 
take possession. Officers to retain their side-arms and 
personal property, and the rights and property of 
citizens to be respected." Grant assented to the first 
amendment, but said to the second, "I can make no 
stipulations with regard to the treatment of citizens 
and their private property. While I do not propose 
to cause them any undue annoyance or loss, I cannot 
consent to leave myself under any restraint by stip- 
ulations." 

The minds of the two commanders finally meet 
upon ever}^ point, and Pemberton sends his unqualified 
assent in the course of the night. At ten o'clock on 
the morning of the 4th of July, along eight miles 
of fortification, from every gorge and sally-porL 
emerge columns in gray, bearing the fiimiliar arms 
and tattered standards of an army. The officers and 
soldiers assume a composure and indifference which 
imperfectly hides their visible humiliation, as they 
stack their guns and prostrate their colors before their 
conquerors, acknowledging their defeat upon the very 
ground which is signally the arena of the trial by 
battle. 

The soldiers in blue throng the opposite parapets, 
tendering the homage of respectful silence to " foe- 
men worthy of their steel," and with all feelings of 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 289 

exultation tempered by genuine sentiments of com- 
passion. But little personal acrimony entered into 
the struggles around Vicksburg ; and the privates of 
the two armies had frequently met, rather as compa- 
triots than foes. Even the inspiration of our national 
jubilee failed to elicit from our generous troops any 
manifestations of triumph. The motives which had 
induced Pemberton to select this day, which in the 
estimation of the victor added to the eclat, and of the 
vanquished to the abasement, of the surrender, he 
himself has assigned ; justifying his choice by reasons 
which, in the judgment of his superiors, constituted 
the gravamen of the offence : " If it should be asked 
why the 4th of July was selected as the day for sur- 
render, the answer is obvious. I believed that upon 
that day I should obtain better terms. Well aware 
of the vanity of our foes, I knew thej' would attach 
vast importance to the entrance on the 4th of July 
into the stronghold of the great river, and that, to 
gratify their national vanity, they would yield then 
what could not be extorted from them at any other 
time." 

It is a wonderful illustration of the vigor and ener- 
gy with which Grant pursued the business of crush- 
ing the Rebellion, that, on the first intimation of an 
intention to surrender, he commenced issuing orders 
to Sherman, and organizing a force for the pursuit of 
Johnston, and the recapture of the capital of the State. 
He paused not for rest, however severe w^ere his 
labors ; he reposed not upon laurels, however glorious, 
while there was still work to be done. At midnight 
of the 3d, when he is dictating terms of capitulation 

19 



290 LIFE OF GEyEEAL GRANT. 

to Pemberton, lie is writing to Sherman, " Vicksburg 
will surrender to-night or in the morning : make your 
calculations to attack Johnston, and destroy the north 
road to Jackson. I have directed Steele and Ord to 
move the moment of surrender. I want Johnston 
broken up as effectually as possible. You can make 
your own arrangements, and have all the troops of my 
command, except one corps." Before Grant had actu- 
ally entered Vicksburg, forty thousand men of his 
army were retracing their weary footsteps to the Big 
Black, Edward's Depot, Champion's Hill, bent on the 
conquest of another army and another stronghold of 
Rebellion. 

Loo:an's division, which was the most advanced of 
our army, was honored with the commission to occu- 
py Vicksburg. But four thousand inhabitants re- 
mained within the town ; and the ravages of war and 
the manifest distresses of the beleaguered citizens 
fairly moved the commiseration of soldiers who had 
themselves endured the sufferings and hardships of 
the march, the battles, and the siege. Grant accom- 
panied the columns of Logan. 

While I was in Washington, I had the pleasure of 
hearing General Grant describe the meeting between 
Pemberton and himself on this memorable occasion. 
Immediately after listening to the account, I returned 
to my own room, committed it to paper, and sent it 
to my flunily at home. I transcribe his description 
from my own letter, now before me: — 

"While one of the Illinois regiments," he said, 
^- was raising its flag upon the court-house at Vicks- 
burg, I deemed it but an act of courtesy to pay my 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 291 

respects to Pemberton, and went in search of his 
headquarters. I found him seated on the piazza of 
a house, surrounded by his officers and staff! No one 
advanced to receive me, or recognized my presence 
in any way. I dismounted my liorse, and joined the 
party on the porch, when Pemberton acknowledged 
the acquaintance by a slight nod. He offered me no 
seat; and I remained standing, while he and his sub- 
ordinates were sitting. A Mississippi general finally 
arose, and pushed towards me his chair. The day was 
opprCvSsively warm and dusty ; and, to relieve the con- 
straint of the interview, I asked for a glass of water. 
Pemberton pointed to the interior of the house ; and 
I groped my way through it to a well in the rear, 
where I found a negro, who drew up a bucket, and 
tendered me a drink from a gourd. I returned to the 
party on the piazza, and found my chair re-occupied ; 
and, although I remained standing for twenty min- 
utes, I was not offered a seat again ; and I left Pem- 
berton, and went on my way. Our sole conversation 
was about the supply of rations for his troops ; and I 
learned then, for the first time, the number of men 
who had surrendered, having presumed all along that 
there were but fifteen to twenty thousand men in the 
garrison," Can there be any doubt that Pollard is 
correct when he describes Pemberton as having a 
"captious and irritable nature, a narrow mind." He 
can fawn on national vanity; he can humiliate his 
clan by enhancing the glory of the conqueror, in 
order to secure favorable terms of surrender ; but, 
after they have been once obtained, he can insult a 
generous adversary, in the presence of his staff^ while 



292 LIFE OF GENEEAL GIJ.VNT. 

he is supplicating him for rations for a starving army. 
This is chivalry when it is taken by inoculation. He 
can beg from a victor to whom he clisdaihs to offer a 
chair or a cup of water. 

Grant reported to Halleck, that thirty-two thousand 
troops, fifty thousand stand of arras, and a hundred 
and sevent}^ cannon were surrendered. An enor- 
mous amount of ordnance and ordnance stores fell 
into his hands. Among the prisoners were two 
thousand one hundred and fifty-three officers, includ- 
ing; fifteen G;enerals. When General Mack filed his 
thirty thousand Austrians, sixteen generals, and sixty 
cannon before Napoleon at the capitulation of Ulra, 
Jomini represents the emperor as saying, '-' I had 
already within the last ten years gained many 
brilliant successes ; but never had I enjoyed a 
triumph like that of an entire array defiling before 
me, and laying down their arms, their colors, and their 
cannon. Placed on an eminence which commands 
the city, and all the basin of the Danube, I could 
contemplate at ray ease the spectacle which promised 
me such high destinies." IIow did Grant contemplate 
a triumph still more gorgeous? He betrays no 
emotion : he assumes no more airs than when he was 
selling wood at St. Louis, and dealing in leather at 
Galena. If modesty is a cardinal virtue, you have it 
here, with supererogation enough to equip Bom- 
bastes Furioso for a saintship. He narrated the 
achievement to Halleck with an absence of parade 
and ostentation which would hardly be credited if 
the documents were not seen and read by all men. 
The highest strain of exultation, in the various com- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 293 

munications wliicli he writes at this time, is reached 
by Grant in his letter to Thomas of July 11th, in 
which he says, " The capture of Vicksburg has proved 
a bigger thing than I supposed it would. There 
were over thirty thousand rebel troops still left 
when we entered the city. The number of small- 
arms will reach fifty thousand stand I think, and the 
amount of ordnance and ordnance stores is enormous. 
Since crossing the Mississippi, an army of sixty 
thousand men has in the various battles been killed 
and wounded, captured and scattered, so as to be lost 
to the Confederacy ; and an armament for an army of 
a hundred thousand men has departed from them 
forever." 

Mr. Alison, the historian of Europe, speaks of the 
spectacle exhibited at Ulm as "unparalleled in 
modern warfare, and sufficient to have turned the 
strongest head." But Ulm is no longer paramount ; 
and the surrender of Vicksburg, which pales its 
splendor, was the work of a head which no military 
success can turn. England's great admiral described 
the battle of the Nile, " not as a victory, but as a con- 
quest." The language is singularly applicable to the 
Vicksburg campaign. In five pitched battles, two 
rebel armies were vanquished, in the heart of their 
domain, in the centre of their resources. Sixty 
thousand men were killed, wounded, and captured. 
Armaments and munitions of war sufficient for an 
army of a hundred thousand were among the 
spoils. Port Hudson immediately fell, and the two 
strongest fortified positions of treason were the^ first 
fruits of this magnificent triumph. But into what 



294 LIFE or GENEBAL GKANT. 

depths of insignificance do even such trophies sink, 
compared with the severance of the Confederacy, the 
domination of the channel of the great river, the 
unchallenged control of the empire watered by it 
and its tributaries, — which alone would satiate any 
thirst for military aggrandizement save that of the 
man who "wished for another world to conquer!" 

When Congress assembled, the president nominated 
Grant as a major-general in the regular array, with a 
commission to date from the 4th' of July, 1863, 
and promptly addressed to him the following auto- 
graph letter : "I do not remember that you and I 
ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful 
acknowledo-ment for the almost inestimable service 
you have done the country. I wish to say a word 
further. When you first reached the vicinity of 
Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally 
did, — march the troops across the neck, run the 
batteries with the transports, and thus go below ; and 
I never had any faith, except a general hope that 
you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedi- 
tion, and the like, could succeed. When you got 
below, and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, 
I thought you should go down the river, and join 
General Banks ; and when you turned northward, 
east of the Biu; Black, I feared it w^as a mistake. I 
now wish to make a personal acknowledgment that you 
were right and I was wrong." Vicksburg converted 
even Halleck. He had persecuted Grant without 
any justification, and almost driven him to resigna- 
tion, after the victory of Donelson ; he had withheld 
from him all commendations for his subsequent 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 296 

triumphs; he had treated him during the Corinth 
campaign as a mere successful blunderer, and had 
such a contempt for his military abilities that he would 
have superseded him by an unknown quartermaster, 
who had " never set a battalion in the field," in the 
command of the Army of the Tennessee. But even 
Halleck bestows upon him generous praise. 

In a letter acknowledging the receipt of Grant's 
modest account of the capitulation, he says, " Your 
report, dated July 6, of your campaign in Missis- 
sippi, ending in the capitulation of Vicksburg, was 
received last evening. Your narration of the cam- 
paign, like the operations themselves, is brief, soldierly, 
and in every respect creditable and satisfactory. In 
boldness of plan, rapidity of execution, and brilliancy 
of routes, these operations will compare most favor- 
ably with those of Napoleon about Ulm. You and 
your army have well deserved the gratitude of your 
country ; and it will be the boast* of your children, 
that their fathers were of the heroic army which 
re-opened the Mississippi River." 

His companions in arms, who best knew by what 
generalship Vicksburg had been won, presented to 
him an elegant sword, with appropriate ceremonies, 
as a permanent memorial. 

The moment Sherman succeeds in vanquishing 
Johnston, and recapturing the city of Jackson, Grant 
aims at new conquests. He scrutinized the rebel do- 
main for any assailable point where a lodgement would 
be most damaging to the Rebellion. The telegram 
which announced to Halleck Sherman's triumph car- 
ried also an intimation from Grant, that the capture 



296 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

of Mobile would strengthen all our positions in the 
South-west, and seriously threaten Bragg, in Northern 
Georgia. From the 18th of July to the 1st of August, 
he is continually reminding the general-in-chief of the 
practicability of capturing Mobile by an expedition 
through Lake Pontchartrain ; but Halleck's policy was 
neither bold nor comprehensive, and the Mobile plan 
met the same cool reception with the other projects 
which Grant had initiated. Special reasons were also 
assigned for its rejection. The intrigues of France in 
Mexican affixirs, and rumors of ne2:otiations between 
England and Texas, increased the anxiety of the 
president to place an efficient force upon our south- 
eastern border as soon as the progress of our arms at 
the east would justify it. 

The emancipation proclamation of the president had 
BOW become operative ; and Grant entered zealously 
into the organization of the negro regiments, which 
were at this tim5 authorized. He expressed in de- 
cided terms to the Confederate officers upon his bor- 
ders that any treatment of colored troops inconsist- 
ent with the acknowledged rules and usages of war 
would be met by prompt retaliation. He vigorously 
opposed, in his correspondence with the heads of de- 
partment at Washington, the plan which had been 
adopted of opening trade with the rebellious States ; 
contending, that, without benefiting the honest mer- 
chant, it would encouraore dishonest smuo:fj;lers bound 
by no oaths or restriction, furnish to the army articles 
contraband of war, delay the subjection of the States, 
and weaken the strongest motives which were leading 
them back to their old allegiance. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 297 

In the mean time, the great army which he had 
created and discipUnecl, and furnished with officers of 
unsurpassed merit, was scattered from Arkansas to 
Chattanooga. A part of the Thirteenth Corps was sent 
to the Department of the Gulf; a division from Hurl- 
but and one from McPherson were despatched to re- 
. enforce Rosecrans. Grant had been instructed to 
co-operate with Banks in the unfortunate Red-River 
expedition ; and this constrained him to go to New 
Orleans, to learn the precise scope and purpose of the 
movement. He was here thrown by a vicious horse, 
at a review ; which confined him to his bed for several 
weeks, and disabled him from resuming his duties at 
Vicksburg until the 26th of September. Upon his 
return he found an order from Halleck, which direct- 
ed him to send Sherman to Rosecrans. He acted 
promptly upon the command, and had embarked Sher- 
man's corps in transports, when the news reached him 
that the blow which had been long anticipated had 
descended upon Rosecrans at Chickamauga. On the 
10th of October he received an order from the gen- 
eral-in-chief which called him to Cairo ; and, after his 
arrival there on the 17th, he was required to report 
" for field operations " at Louisville. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HE RELIEVES CHICKAMAUGA, AND WINS ITS GREAT BATTLE. 

[OCTOBER, 1863, TO MARCH, 1864.] 

ON the inii of October, 1863, I find Gen. Grant 
at Louisville, Ky., called there for an inter- 
view with the secretary of war. Mr. Stanton im- 
mediately invested him w^ith the command of the Mil- 
itary Division of the Mississippi, embracing a juris- 
diction over all the territory between the Alleghanies 
and the great river. The three departments — Ten- 
nessee, which Grant commanded ; the Cumberland, 
under Rosecrans ; and the Ohio, under Burnside — 
were thus united under one leader. The policy of 
subjecting to one administration operations which had 
the same essential objects, and which were upon the 
same general theatre, that out of conflicting meas- 
ures and independent movements order and har- 
mony might be evoked, had been advised by Grant 
more than a year ago ; and it was at length adopted 
by the authorities at Washington. 

Rosecrans had just fought the battle of Chickamau- 
ga, which, after he had retired from the field, the con- 
summate generalship of Thomas had redeemed from 
irretrievable disaster. The situation of things at the 

298 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 299 

front was exceedingly critical. Rosecrans had yielded 
to the enemy positions which were essential to the 
security of the army ; and he was now driven into the 
closest straits, and was meditating the evacuation of 
a strategical position of inestimable value, and which 
had been purchased at a fearful sacrifice. Grant, 
though still lame from his New Orleans accident, im-* 
mediately started for the front. The first order which 
he issued placed Thomas over Rosecrans in com- 
mand of the Army of the Cumberland. His second 
instructed the new commander to " hold Chattanooga 
at all hazards ; " to which he received the memo- 
rable reply, " I will hold it till we starve." His third 
order placed Sherman in command of the Depart- 
ment of the Tennessee. Grant is on his way to the 
front by rail, but halts at one station to telegraph 
Burnside — who is at Knoxville, where he is threat- 
ened from the east — " to fortify his position by in- 
trenchments ; " at another, to request Porter " to fur- 
nish a convoy to Sherman," who is winding his way 
up the Mississippi with his army corps ; and at a third, 
to instruct the chief commissary at Nashville " to for- 
ward supplies forthwith to Chattanooga." And thus, 
fulminating important telegrams in every direction, 
the indomitable man, still crippled by his fall, over 
difficult roads, by rail, on horseback, on foot, some- 
times borne over torrents in the arms of his compan- 
ions, wended his way to Chattanooga, and reached 
Thomas's headquarters on the evening of the 23d. 

He found the condition of affairs sufficiently dis- 
heartening. The straggling village of Chattanooga is 
situated in a bend of the Tennessee. Three miles to 



300 . LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the right of the town in a south-westerly direction, 
rising to a height of twenty- two hundred feet, is 
Lookout Mountain, — ■ a rocky upheaval a mile or 
two wide, and stretching a hundred and fifty miles 
to the south. It presents its northern and eastern 
front to Chattanooga ; but its western face is turned 
towards a parallel ridge, two miles farther off, called 
Raccoon Mountain, with a valley between them 
named Lookout Valley. The bases of these two 
mountains descend to the Tennessee and command 
its channel, which alone renders them sufficiently 
obnoxious to an army occupying Chattanooga ; but, 
in addition to this, the railroad from Nashville courses 
along the front of Raccoon Mountain, crosses Look- 
out Valley, winds round the controlling northern 
face of Lookout Mountain, and then enters Chatta- 
nooga. Upon the Nashville Road we depended en- 
tirely for our supplies. Both of the mountains and 
the valley, which thus held Chattanooga in their 
grasp, had been yielded by Rosecrans to the enemy, 
and were now occupied by Bragg. 

Such was the unfavorable condition of things upon 
our right. Nor was there much consolation when 
Grant turned to his left ; for here, rising to a height 
of four hundred feet, was Missionary Ridge, another 
narrow upheaval of seven miles in length ; and the 
spurs which it projected towards the river were also 
held by Bragg, and fortified with substantial earth- 
\vorks. The rifle-pits and outposts of the enemy 
reached from the base of Lookout Mountain, on the 
right, to within a mile of the Tennessee, and from Mis- 
sionary Ridge, on the left, to within the same distance 
of the river. 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 301 

The fact stares Grant in the face that Chattanooga 
is invested, — that our army is besieged. From Look- 
out Mountain, Bragg throws shells into our camp; 
from Missionary Ridge, where he is securely seated, 
he watches all the movements of the army cooped 
up at its foot : from the former, by approaches nearer 
than our own, he strikes our communications with 
Nashville; and from the latter, seriously threatens 
those with Knoxville. Our trains, with medical stores, 
ordnance, and ammunition, are continually harassed 
and captured by Bragg's cavalry detachments: There 
is only powder enough in camp for a single action. 
We are even compelled at this time to drag all 
army stores in wagons for sixty miles, and over abom- 
inable roads. But ten days ago, Jefferson Davis him- 
self stands upon these surrounding summits, and casts 
his delighted eyes upon the Chattanooga Valley, and 
counts and measures the victims which are to smoke 
on his altars, and exclaims exultingly, " The green 
fields of Tennessee will shortly again be ours." So 
sanguine of conquest was Bragg, that he affirmed in 
his report, " that these positions, fiithfully sustained, 
insured the enemy's speedy evacuation of Chatta- 
nooga for want of food and forage. Possessed of the 
shortest route to his depot, and the one by which 
re-enforcements must reach him, we held him at our 
mercy ; and his destruction was only a question of 
time." 

When Grant inspected the temper and spirit of his 
command, he found but little to relieve the gloom. 
Chattanooga was crowded with three thousand wound- 
ed and forty-five thousand debilitated troops. All 



302 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

were living upon half-rations, weak from want of 
nourishing food, without suitable raiment, wilted by 
disaster. The soldiers were but partially protected by 
tents from the chilling blasts and rains of autumnal 
nights. In their front were inaccessible heights ; the 
enemy's pickets were within speaking distance ; the 
river was at their back ; the railroad was severed, and 
they were thus separated from the dominion in their 
wake. The expectation of relief was abandoned. Re- 
enforcements would merely add to the distress of 
hunger and the danger of starvation. There is no 
forage : the artillery horses are sent to the rear ; mules 
and cavalry chargers are dying daily ; and even the 
guards and soldiers on duty are dragging round weary 
bodies and heavier hearts upon lifeless feet, like res- 
pited criminals awaiting the day of execution. Grant 
can look nowhere for consolation but to the indomi- 
table pluck of Thomas's corps, which held the left at 
Chickamauga against the concentrated rebel hosts. 

When Grant turns to his supports upon the outside, 
he finds but little to exhilarate his spirits. Knoxville, 
isolated from relief, is held by Burnside with a preca- 
rious tenure, which continually agitates the author- 
ities at Washington. Squadrons of cavalry and gue- 
rillas are between Chattanoosja and Nashville. Sher- 
man is on a hazardous march, with prolonged and im- 
perilled communications, in the centre of a hostile 
country. The only bright spot on Grant's whole hori- 
zon is at Bridgeport, thirty miles to his right, where 
the Nashville Road crosses the Tennessee, which 
Hooker is now holding, with two veteran divisions of 
the Army of the Potomac. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 303 

The first effort to which Grant addresses his ener- 
gies is to disembarrass his communications, and open 
an unimpeded pathway to ammunition and rations. 
I have already stated, that the Nashville Railroad * 
skirts the northern spurs of Raccoon and Lookout 
Mountains, and the deep vale, or glen, which lies be- 
tween them. Both the valley, and the hills at its 
mouth, are held by the flower of Bragg's army, 
Longstreet's famous corps ; and their pickets extend 
to the margin of the Tennessee. 

Grant determined to seize Lookout Valley and the 
adjacent spurs, by a combined movement which pushed 
Hooker over the Tennessee into the mouth of the 
valley, Palmer from Chattanooga to hold the road 
passed over by Hooker in his movement, and ensconced 
William F. Smith in ambush on the northern bank of 
the Tennessee, opposite Brown's Ferry, with direc- 
tions to improve the earliest opportunity to cross the 
fiver rapidly, and surprise the secondary crests at the 
valley's debouch. The night of the 27th of October 
was dark and foggy. Sixty pontoon boats, with 
eighteen hundred armed men, were launched upon 
the rapid current of the river, and were borne swiftly 
past the pickets of Longstreet, along the spurs of 
Lookout Mountain, around Moccasin Point, and 
reached Brown's Ferry, where a heavy rebel volley 
announced the movement to the camp of Longstreet. 
The pontoons were laid ; and Smith darted from his 
ambush across the river, forced back Longstreet's 
outskirts from the mouth of the valley, and held the 
adjoining hills with breastworks and -abatis. 

On the evening of the 28th, Hooker, with two divis- 



804 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

ions under Howard and Geary, having marched four- 
teen miles from Bridgeport, was encamped on the 
southern bank of the Tennessee. Howard is one mile 
from Brown's Ferry, and Geary three miles to the south 
of it, at Wauhatchie ; and both are plainly visible from 
Lookout Mountain. As fast as Hooker had advanced, 
Palmer had followed in his wake, occupying the road, 
fortifying controlling positions on its borders, construct- 
ing breastworks across its bed, and abatis in its deep 
cuts. Longstreet saw at a glance that our success 
would relieve Chattanooga from investment. At one 
o'clock at night, he sprung upon Geary's flank at 
Wauhatchie wath the fury of a tiger. And now en- 
sued one of the most romantic scenes of the war, — a 
desperate struggle between well-matched troops, on 
moon-lighted hills, down deep ravines dark at high 
noon, the flashes of the discharges only showing foe 
to foe, and the numberless mountain echoes begruilingj 
the ear into the belief that there was nothing in earth 
or air but an incessant and universal fusillade. En- 
veloped on three sides at once by a corps unaccus- 
tomed to be foiled in its spring, Geary, though fre- 
quently overborne, held his camp with a tenacity and 
skill worthy of his established renown. He met the 
charging columns with lines of bayonets, and, after a 
three hours' conflict, repelled every attack, and drove 
Longstreet discomfited into the recesses of the moun- 
tain. Hooker heard the mutterings of the storm, and, 
through blind and unftimiliar roads, moved with How- 
ard's nearest brigades to the relief of their comrades. 
Howard fairly felt his way ; but a blaze of musketry 
soon illuminated his path, revealing a hill two hundred 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL TTAE ? 305 

feet high on which the enemy was lodged. Up its 
accHvities his dauntless regiments charged, received 
by yells and taunts of defiance and rending volleys 
and blazing rifle-pits. They carried the parapet on its 
summit by a dash with cold steel which wrung even 
from the composed mind of Thomas this high eulo- 
gium : " The bayonet charge of Howard's troops, made 
up the side of a steep and difiScult hill over two hun- 
dred feet high, completely routing the enemy from 
his barricades on the top, will rank among the most 
distinguished feats of arms of this war." By four 
o'clock on the morning of the 29th the conflict was 
over, and Hooker's army corps securely ensconced at 
the mouth of Lookout Valley, with Smith in posses- 
sion of the adjacent spurs, and Palmer occupying the 
.approach. Every detachment engaged in the com- 
bined movement has successfully accomplished its 
allotted task. As its crowning results, the enemy 
is put upon the defensive ; the road is free to Nash- 
ville ; artillery horses are again seen in the streets, 
and steamboats at the wharves, of Chattanooga ; food 
and ammunition flow in ; and, with full rations, and 
confidence in the ability of a commander who works 
such miracles, the soldiers again assume the air and 
bearing of conquerors. Within six days from Grant's 
arrival, the tables are turned ! The historian of the 
" Lost Cause " admits, that " Grant's lodgement on the 
south side of the Tennessee was assured. He was in 
firm possession of the new lines of communication ; 
he had attained all the results he had anticipated ; 
and his relief of Chattanooga was now to be taken as 
an accomplished fact." 

20 



306 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Fortune, it is said, always befriends those who 
befriend themselves ; and, while Grant was thus breast- 
ino- with determined resolution the embarrassments 
of Chattanooga, he received assistance from an unex- 
pected quarter. Rebel accounts of the war explain 
many movements which were mysteries to us at the 
time ; and we learn from these sources why Bragg, 
w^hen his hold upon the mountains was daily becom- 
ing more precarious, and he was in hourly expecta- 
tion of a battle, detached Longstreet's corps of fifteen 
thousand men upon a Quixotic raid against Burnside, 
in the loyal mountains of East Tennessee. Mr. Pol- 
lard informs us to whom we were indebted for this fool- 
hardy diversion. "President Davis," he says, "on 
the 12th of October, visited the fields of Chickamauga. 
He planned the expedition against Knoxville. His 
visits to every battle-field of the Confederacy were 
ominous. He disturbed the plans of his generals; 
his military conceit led him into the wildest schemes ; 
*tnd so much did he fear that the public would not 
ascribe to him the hoped-for results of the visionary 
projects that his vanity invariably divulged it ; and 
successes were foretold in public speeches with such 
boastful plainness as to put the enemy on his guard, 
and inform him of the general nature of the enter- 
prise. He was in furious love with the extraordinary 
design ; and, in a public address to the army, he could 
not resist the temptation of announcing that 'the 
green fields of Tennessee would shortly again be 
theirs.' " 

Grant did not believe imtil the 5th of November 
that this strange design was actually accomplished ; 



WHAT DID HE DO IK THE CIVIL WAR? 307 

and, although his own immediate front was relieve'd, it 
created apprehensions in another quarter, which were 
more troublesome to him than all his other anxieties 
combined. During this campaign, the president and 
Halleck incessantly worried Grant with their Knox- 
ville panic. He would have purchased Burnside's 
safety by any personal peril : it was one of those 
tribulations which are " new every morning, fresh 
every evening, and repeated every moment." The 
telegraphic wires, of which Grant's auricular nerve is 
a mere prolongation, were surcharged with Wash- 
ington fears for Burnside. Although unprepared for 
battle, he determined to attack Bragg at once, with 
the expectation that his choicest corps would be im- 
mediately recalled from its chase after Burnside, and 
the fears of the cabinet allayed. On the 7th of No- 
vember he ordered Thomas to storm Missionary 
Ridge ; but that valorous chieftain, who was not easily 
staggered by difficulties, pleaded the want of horses to 
move his artillery, and the absolute impracticability 
of the movement until he was supported by Sher- 
man. Grant is obliged to yield ; but it was one of the 
most trying periods of his life, and, for the first time 
during his military career, I discover that his equa- 
nimity of disposition is visibly disturbed. He is in- 
dignant at Bragg's coolness in bearding him to the 
face, chafed at Thomas's caution, chagrined even 
with Sherman, who is marching with seven-league 
boots, and wished, like Napoleon, to surmount impos- 
sibilities by a general order. 

Do not suppose that Grant's labors are bounded by 
the Chattanooga lines. He makes his three scat- 



SOS LIFE OF GEXEEAL GEANT. 

terecl armies one man. He concentrates the resources 
of his vast military district, with its two hundred 
thousand men, upon Lookout Mountain and Mis- 
sionary Ridge. He organizes co-operating efforts 
from Knoxville to Milliken's Bend, from the Ohio 
to the Gulf He collects locomotives and cars from 
Jackson, Miss., to Chicago. A thousand steamboats 
obey his commands to quartermasters and commis- 
saries. His railroad repairs employ an army of opera- 
tives. Telegrams and despatches, drawn frc^m him 
by these details, are Grant's commentaries, — equal in 
bulk to Caesar's. He moves a million hands : Eastern 
founderies blaze by day and night. Northern work- 
shops groan, grain elevators creak from Dubuque to 
Albany, butchers with lowing droves cover the high- 
way and the prairie, Western lakes and rivers are 
buffeted by fleets, great States tremble beneath the 
tread of armed men, — the continent is laid under con- 
tribution, that the Cumberland Mountains may bend 
their haughty necks in obedience to the supreme law 
of the nation. 

His supervision of Sherman's march alone would 
have established the reputation of any other man for 
unwearisome activity. Sherman had steamed four 
hundred miles to Memphis, and was now toiling over 
the wearisome interval of four hundred miles which 
divides the Mississippi from Chattanooga, through a 
country infested with guerillas and sharpshooters, 
wliich continually hung upon his flanks, severed 
him from his base, and burned the bridges in his 
front. Steadily and swiftly the noble corps push for- 
ward to the relief of their commander, repairing and 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL ^\ AR ? 309 

guarding the roads in their rear, which connected 
them with Memphis. Sherman encountered at various 
points organized bodies of the enemy, and maintained 
his progress by determined battles, of sufficient mao-- 
nitude to have been trumpeted as triumphs in the 
war of 1812. 

As soon, however, as Grant was seated at Chicka- 
mauga, he began, by his telegrams, to transform Sher- 
man's march — which had hitherto been conducted by 
regular operations connected with a base — into the 
nature of a movable column, and to expedite it by 
hurrying supplies to points on its line, and by every 
incentive which he could administer to its spirit and 
energy. When, near the middle of October, Sherman 
reached Eastport on the Tennessee, he, encountered 
another formidable force of the enemy, but found at 
its wharves gunboats, transports, and rations, which 
the providence of Grant had despatched from St. Louis 
by the circuitous channels of the river, and a telegram 
also, which said, '• Increase your moving columns to 
the greatest possible strength." Pursuing thence his 
impeded march, Grant supervises every step, reinino- 
the columns in this direction or in that, to threaten 
Longstreet or support Burnside, urging and spur- 
ring them, too, occasionally, that they may* reach Chat- 
tanooga at the earliest possible moment consistent 
with the other interests they are made to subserve. 
AYatching Sherman's progress hourly. Grant feeds him 
by telegram ; saying, for instance, to one of his chief 
commissaries, " Sherman will reach Fayetteville to- 
morrow without any thing to eat. See the shipping 
commissary, and direct him to secure transportation, 



310 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

and send a hundred thousand rations to-morrow 
mornino'." When Sherman is within fifty aiiles of 
Chattanooga, Grant in his behalf turns surveyor of 
hio-hways in Southern Tennessee and Northern Geor- 
gia, telegraphing to his trusted comrade, " By the 
Avay of New Market and Maysville, you will avoid the 
heavy mountains, and find abundance of forage." On 
the 14th, Sherman has reached Bridgeport, and Grant 
is beginning to feel relieved, when the Burnside 
trouble breaks out afresh. " I fear," says Halleck, in 
a telegram of the 16th, "he will not fight, although 
strongly urged to do so. Unless you can give him 
immediate assistance, he will surrender his position to 
the enemy." Grant determined that the only efiectual 
way to relieve Knoxville was by fighting Bragg 5 and 
when, on the 15th, Sherman entered Chattanooga, 
accompanied by him and Thomas, Grant rode to the 
front, and there planned the movement which re- 
deemed Burnside from peril, and enabled Sherman to 
scourge Rebellion from Atlanta to the sea, and from 
Savannah to the Cape Fear. The Fifteenth Army 
Corps was still at Bridgeport ; and, although the orders 
for battle were issued for the 17th of November, rains, 
freshets, and pontoon entanglements postponed it 
until the 23d. 

Bragg's line extended from Lookout Mountain, 
where his left was seated, twenty-two hundred feet 
above the valley, and then swept in a semicircle of 
seven miles in length, its centre and right occupying 
the fortified crests of Missionary Ridge, four hundred 
feet high. Grant, therefore, addressed seven miles of 
fortifications, garrisoned by forty-five thousand vet- 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 311 

eran soldiers. His own army is one vast storming 
party ; not one effectual forward step is to be made 
without the desperate temerity which gives to the 
forlorn hope its name. 

The succession of battles which is named after Chat- 
tanooga lasted for three days, commencing on Mon- 
day the 23d of November, and closing on the night 
of Wednesday the 25th. The operations of Monday 
were entirely confined to Thomas's corps. The attack 
then made constituted a part of the plan of battle 
which Grant had intended to execute on the follow- 
ing day ; but it was expedited twenty-four hours, in 
consequence of reliable information which had been 
communicated to headquarters, that Bragg was evacu- 
ating the mountains. Grant ordered Thomas to ascer- 
tain forthwith the truth of the rumor. Thomas's 
intrenched line confronts the cei^re of Missionary 
Ridge, occupying a series of hills about a mile from 
Chattanooga, with the highest and most commanding 
one crowned by a redoubt called Fort Wood. The first 
rebel line was on the fronting acclivities of Missionary 
Ridge, and nearly a mile from the outworks of our 
redoubt. 

From all the batteries along Thomas's front, from 
Fort Wood, and from our guns on Moccason Point, a 
cannonade opens, echoing through the resounding 
mountains down into the heart of Georgia ; while from 
the crest of Missionary Ridge, and from the artillery on 
its face, a counter-peal rolls far away into the distant 
forests and gorges of Eastern Tennessee. Nature, in 
all her grandeur, contributes to the moral sublimity 
of an engagement which is to decide the destiny of 



312 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

the seven great States which these mountainous bat- 
tlements overlook. At two o'clock in the afternoon, 
Gen. Granger's corps of the Army of the Cumber- 
land, with its right division commanded by Wood, 
deployed its majestic columns in front of Fort Wood. 
Heavy divisions emerge from the intrenchment to its 
support, — Palmer's to its right, and Baird's division en 
echelon, with Howard's magnificent corps massed be- 
hind the centre of Granger. For an hour or two, an 
army of thirty thousand men expanding into lines, 
moving into columns with the precision of a parade, 
covering with their glittering bayonets the valley 
far and wide, presented to the eager spectators on 
Missionary Eidge a splendid pageant, which they 
mistook for a review Nor were the rebels entirely 
disinthralled when, at a signal given. Granger's mar- 
tial corps advanied in the same superb style, and 
with an exactness of formation which seemed but a 
part of the grand spectacle. The pickets of the 
enemy, however, soon discovered that no mere show 
was intended, and scattered before the columns, which 
speedily struck artihery ana musketry volleys as 
they entered the woods, and captured Bragg's grand 
guards, and, finally, encountered the enemy's in- 
trenched hue far up on the inferior crests, which 
proved no more impediment to the resistless advance 
of Sheridan and Wood than the outposts which they 
had brushed from their path. Before re-enforce- 
ments can reach the intrenchments from the main 
camp on the ridge, Granger's division has cleared 
them with the bayonet. The first lines of the enemy, 
including Orchard Knob,— a point of no small impor- 



WHAT DID HE DO I^ST THE CIVIL WAE ? 313 

tance, — are carried after a struggle of fifteen minutes. 
The advance gained is immediately fortified with 
breastworks, and with artillery on controlling posi- 
tions. Our pickets are pushed upwards on to the ridge 
fiir towards the enemy's front. Howard's massed divis- 
ion instantly expands into lines, and, unawed by the 
artillery on the summit of the ridge, which is now 
concentrated upon it, moves to the left of Granger, 
and fortifies its front ; thus presenting twenty thou- 
sand bayonets in intrenched line of battle, a mile 
and a half nearer to the foe than was our most ad- 
vanced post in the morning. The army is wonder- 
fully elated by this triumph, and the brilliant man- 
ner in which it is achieved dissipates the last remain- 
ing vestige of the Chickamauga despondency. The 
artillery on both sides prolong their roar far into the 
night. 

The operations of Tuesday were conducted by 
Sherman against the enemy's right, on the northern 
spurs of Missionary Ridge ; and by Hooker against 
Lookout Mountain, Bragg's extreme left. Thomas, 
on the afternoon of yesterday, had accomplished the 
work which had been originally assigned to him for 
this morning. Sherman, who had occupied a con- 
cealed camp on the northern bank of the Tennessee, 
crossed the river on Monday night. Tuesday morn- 
ing was rainy and lowering: the summits of the 
mountains were covered with thick veils of mist, and 
heavy clouds dropped in drizzling rain upon the val- 
ley. The apparition of Sherman's array looming 
from the fog had not yet startled Bragg. By two 
o'clock in the afternoon, the Fifteenth Corps, in three 



314 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

columns, commanded by Morgan L. Smith, John E. 
Smith, and Ewing, move forward under cover of the 
clouds, gain the foot of the ridge, and commence 
ascending before the movement is detected by the 
enemy. Heavy skirmishers are in front of each col- 
umn, and they advance rapidly up the acclivities, 
followed by their supports. Sherman pushes three 
brigades at double-quick to the top of the first 
crest before Bragg is alarmed, and by three o'clock 
reaches the position which he had been ordered to 
capture. The enemy now opens upon him with artil- 
lery and musketry in a futile effort to dislodge our 
brigades, but soon retires as we also intrench and 
place field-batteries in position. Sherman found that 
he had only scaled a secondary ridge, and that be- 
tween him and Tunnel Hill, where the foe was en- 
sconced in breastwork and batteries, a rough valley 
intervened, half a mile in width. He contemplated, 
with grave but determined aspect, the serious ob- 
structions before him to-morrow, and was reminded 
of the formidable bluffs which had so long confronted 
him from the AValnut Hills of Yicksburg. Under 
cover of the clouds, and during the night, he em- 
ployed heavy details in securing his position, and 
gradually wound his intrenchments round the ridge, 
and connected himself with Howard on its front 
Sherman's movements had all been concealed from 
Grant, in the valley, by the volume of clouds which 
hung over the mountain ; and the emotions of the 
commander may be imagined but not described, 
when at midnight a north wind cleared the heavens, 
and he discovered a continuous line of camp-fires 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 315 

studding the western face of Missionary Ridge, pass- 
ing from Sheridan's to "Wood's, — Howard's, — Sher- 
man's line, and sweeping around the northern face 
until they were finally lost behind the ridge, where 
Sherman's left brigades were bivouacked. 

Lookout Mountain on Tuesday morning, like the 
rest of the landscape, is shrouded in clouds. Hooker 
confronts its northern projection, which presents to 
him a wrinkled surface, with sharp crags beetling out 
from forest and undergrowth. Half-way up, an arable 
plateau encircles the whole mountain ; and above all 
rises a palisaded crest, some fifty feet high, which is 
its topmost summit. Lines of earthwork surround 
the plateau; while down the acclivity, redans, re- 
doubts, rifle-pits, are scattered in every direction where 
an ascent is practicable. A zigzag road climbs from 
crest to crest, and aflfords some assistance to a scaling 
party. 

Early in the morning. Hooker has three detach- 
ments, — Geary's, Grose's, Osterhaus's, — which have 
all moved from different points, and now unitedly 
attack this northern nose of Lookout. Geary is on 
the lead, and passes unscathed the point swept by the 
guns from the summit. Up he mounts, over ledges, 
bowlders, stones, through forests and tangled thickets, 
with such battalions and companies as he can hold 
together on such wild and broken ground, using every 
aid which the road affords, assailed from every crest 
and brake along his pathway. He fights persistently, 
and dislodges the detachments which oppose his 
progress by every bush-fighting expedient which can 
be devised. No science is needed here, but a foot 



316 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

which never fails, hands which at the same time can 
cHng to branches and poise mnskets, an lar sharp 
and detective, an eye alert and sure in its aim. Of 
what avail are combinations in a strait where every 
thing depends upon individual valor and discernment ? 
Geary is, moreover, befriended by the clouds, and the 
advanta2:es are not all on the side of the assailed in 
an up-hill fight. I have heard good soldiers af&rm, 
that they would choose the down-hill side, that the 
foremost rank alone can maul you from a crest, that 
the trees always indicate that bullets from acclivities 
fly too high. It is full noon before Geary surmounts 
the plateau, where are fiirms, cultivated fields, and 
orchards, and a summer resort ; and where, too, the 
enemy's works are the strongest. Grose and Oster- 
haus are following in Geary's wake, and now Hooker's 
line extends from the palisade rock to Chattanooga 
Creek. The mist rolls down the mountain's side in 
great volumes, shrouding the combatants : a flash 
which pierces the vapor, a standard looming from 
some lofty crest, the glimmer of a line as the fog 
lifts for an instant, alone disclose to the rapt specta- 
tors in the valley the surging of the fight. For two 
hours the vivid flashes and the incessant rattle of 
small -arms proclaim the furious struggle for the 
possession of the plateau. It is hemmed in by skir- 
mishers, and charges and counter-charges are made, 
and embankments stormed, in such obscurity that foe 
stumbles upon foe. Thicker and blacker descend the 
lowering masses from the sky, until, at two o'clock, 
the battle is arrested by the darkness profound. As 
Boon, however, as the clouds drop into the valley, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 817 

again the volleys rattle, again lire darts through 
the mist, again bayonets are crossed, until finally the 
enemy is driven to the uppermost crest. By half- 
past five, Hooker has fi)rtified himself in his position, 
opened communications with Chattanooga, and re- 
ported two thousand prisoners captured. Gen. Car- 
lin is sent to his support, and, after contesting his 
march with broken fragments of the enemy, joins his 
brigade to Hooker's left. The fight, however, rages 
during the evening. Signal-lights blaze, and flashes 
run along the palisaded summits, which the enemy 
still holds ; and farther down in the mist are heard 
sputtering shots, and even the mufiied sound of con- 
tending skirmishers, and above all the rebels' defiant 
yell. But the same clear weather at midnight which 
discloses to Grant Sherman's position upon Missionary 
Ridge reveals our camp-fires still steadfast on Look- 
out's plateau, while all indications of rebel domination 
have faded even" from the crowning crest. To Grant's 
announcement of the success of these important 
movements the president replies, " Well done ! Many 
thanks to all ! Remember Burnside." Halleck re- 
sponds, " I congratulate you on the success thus far 
of your plans. I fear that Bui^side is hard pushed, 
and that any further delay may prove fatal." A 
quiet smile relaxes for a moment the habitual rigor 
of Grant's countenance when he thinks that his 
astute superiors at Washington have not yet detected 
that Thomas, Sherman, Hooker, were to-day and yes- 
terday contributing more effectually to the deliver 
ance of Burnside than if all their divisions had been 
flying to Knoxville on the wings of the wind. As lit? 



318 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

glances once more on the unbroken girdle of camp- 
fires around the Ridge, and sees Hooker's beacon still 
blazing on the heights of Lookout, with the full 
confidence of a victory won, he says, " The president 
and Halleck will own it to-morrow." 

Grant is thus sanguine because Hooker's success 
this afternoon necessarily drives the enemy from 
Lookout Mountain and the Chattanooga Valley. In 
one respect, moreover, it essentially contributes to the 
pre-arranged manoeuvres for* to-morrow; for it gives 
Hooker the control of a mountain road down the 
eastern face of Lookout, over the Chattanooga Creek, 
until it penetrates the southern extremity of Mission- 
ary Ridge by the Rossville Gap. Nor has Grant less 
occasion to exult over the easy victory of Sherman 
this morning, which has greatly subserved the fore- 
ordered plan of battle. 

Sherman finds the secondary crest, which he has 
won, more available as a position from which to 
threaten than to assail the enemy's right. He scans 
the valley before him, entangled with extraordinary 
obstructions. His rapid eye travels up and down the 
sides of the nearest ridge, which, whether timbered or 
wooded, are not easily surmounted, and then dwells 
longer than is its wont on the hill through which the 
railroad passes, commanding the valley and inferior 
heights with the plunging fire of its embrasured works. 
Beyond even Tunnel Hill, a vision not apt to quail 
perceptibly droops before the supreme crest, covered 
with gray masses of the enemy. Nor can Sherman 
disguise from his mind, what he cannot discern with 
iiis eye, that there are gorges and involved railroad- 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? 319 

cuts between himself and the fortified heights to 
which he aspires, which may present more formidable 
difficulties than any which he is permitted to survey. 

But while, as a point of attack upon the enemy's 
northern forts, the .crest upon which he stands pos- 
sesses no great merit, it is, nevertheless, of vast use 
to Grant's ulterior designs -, for Bragg cannot afford to 
slumber on these posts, or detach a man from these 
garrisons, while an antagonist of Sherman's character 
is waiting and watching for a chance to spring, es- 
pecially when the same alert and wiry foe is within 
striking distance of the bridge by which the railroad 
to Cleveland and Atlanta — upon which the rebel army 
depends for supplies — crosses the South Chickamauga 
River. Sherman summed up the whole merits of his 
position when he reported to Grant, " I esteem the 
crest which I secured to-day as but of little value, but 
made as much noise about it as possible, to alarm 
Bragg for the safety of his right wing and the railroad 
bridge in his rear." Grant unquestionably hoped 
that the mere appearance of Sherman's large army 
corps in its present position would force Bragg to 
enfeeble his whole line, for the defence of his rio:ht. 

Bragg now holds a contracted line of immense 
strength, six miles in length, on the intrenched crest 
of the Ridge, from Fort Breckenridge on its southern 
spurs — which will be addressed by Hooker — to Fort 
Buckner on its northern front, — already addressed by 
Sherman, — while the superior acclivities of its western 
face are also protected by two ranges of rifle-pits. 
Grant now develops the bold plan of battle, for which 
the work of Monday and Tuesday was merely prelimi- 



S.20 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

nary. He intends to attack both of the extremes 
with so much vigor as to compel Bragg to weaken 
his centre, and then, by an audacious charge up the 
western face, break through the vital point which he 
has forced the enemy to deplete. You see Sherman 
in position for the assault upon the right; I have 
pointed out the Rossville Road which opens Hooker's 
path to the left; I have already exhibited Thomas's 
corps posted on the western face of the ridge for 
the decisive movement against the centre. If Grant 
accomplishes these results, he virtually controls by his 
own will the motions of his foe ; and, if there is a 
higher attainment of generalship than this, I have yet 
to discover it. 

Wednesday morning, the 25th of November, broke 
clear and cold, without a cloud on the azure face of 
heaven, or a haze in the transparent atmosphere. 
Grant stationed himself on the elevated mound which 
Thomas wrested from the enemy yesterday, called 
Orchard Knob, commanding a view of a battle-field 
of unsurpassed grandeur. Directly in his front were 
the crags of primitive rock which elemental forces 
had upheaved as a battlement worthy of a contest 
between two mighty armies. The stupendous masses 
of the Cumberland Mountains, within reach of his 
heaviest artillery, were the imposing boundary of this 
arena of conflict upon the west. Between the two 
ranges I have thus delineated, a knotted country, cor- 
responding with such a setting, scathed of every ves- 
tige of human handiwork by the footsteps of war, rolls 
away to the south in massive hills of barrenness, 
while the broad and rapid channel of the Tennessee 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 821 

winds in huge coils along the northern border. From 
Orchard Knob, Grant sees Hooker's ten thousand, 
clambering mountain ridges, preparing to leap into 
the Chattanooga valley, and then climb again to the 
Rossville summit; he sees Sherman, already on his 
charger, marshalling his noble soldiery for the desper- 
ate assault upon the right fortifications of the ridge ; 
he finds at his feet, surrounding him on every side, 
the vigilant and eager army of Thomas, awaiting but 
a signal — but a glance of the eye — to hurl their 
impetuous but disciplined valor against the vital 
centre of Bragg's intrenchments. 

The sun had well risen before Sherman's bugle 
sounded. He moves a deployed battle-line, whose 
right almost reaches Howard's left, on the Chatta- 
nooga front, and, encircling the entire northern face, 
extends to Boyce's Station on the eastern acclivities. 
This line of bayonets, thus clasping, as with a gigan- 
tic embrace, the southernmost projection upon all 
its sides, sweeps up grandly against the withering 
fire of all the batteries, overwhelming the rifle-pits in 
its unbroken advance, and, storming through the in- 
tervening valley, scales the second ridge of the series, 
and permanently seats itself there, and also in a 
work which terminated the rebel line. He throws 
off Morgan L. Smith to his left, to threaten the rail- 
road bridge, the communications and depots of the 
enemy. From this position Sherman was not dis- 
lodged during the day, nor did he successfully estab- 
lish himself beyond it. Between here and Tunnel 
Hill was the arena of his terrible conflict. He stormed 
up to within eighty yards of it, and surged back 



322 LIFE OF GENEIiAL GEANT. 

again disastrously ; stormed up again, and again with- 
drew his bleeding columns, draining re-enforcements 
from the enemy's centre at every spring, voluntarily 
aggregating the hostile forces upon himself by re- 
peated demonstrations both against their works and 
their supplies, — intentionally drawing the enemy 
hitherward, and performing in a masterly manner his 
part of the consummate intrigue. Grant repeatedly 
tenders re-enforcements to him ; but Sherman declines 
them, saying that he has men enough for the allur- 
ing and seductive role which has been assigned to 
him to play. 

While the battle is thus raging furiously in Sher- 
man's front, Grant more than once turns his eye 
anxiously towards Hooker, who is delaying the de- 
7iouement of this grand drama. He has descended 
from Lookout, and entered the valley, where he finds 
the Chattanooga Creek swollen by rains, and impas- 
sable by artillery. Grant beholds him . vigorously 
bridging. Early in the afternoon, he sees the head of 
his column filing over the creek, and soon mounting 
the southerly acclivities of Missionary Ridge. By 
two o'clock, he hears the thunder of Hooker's guns 
on the enemy's fortified left, where he, like Sherman, 
is arrested, but storms again and threatens uproari- 
ously, demanding every battalion of the foe to with- 
stand his impetuosity and vigor. As the afternoon 
begins to wane, Sherman, on the right, arrays his 
columns ostentatiously for another assault ; and Grant 
sees that along the ridge a heavy division of the 
enemy is hurrying towards the point threatened by 
his favorite lieutenant Bragg has at length been 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 323 

inveigled into the precise movement which his ad- 
versary has plotted from the commencement of the 
engagement. The moment for which Grant has qui- 
etly waited during the day has finally arrived. Sheri- 
dan, Wood, Baird, are all with him on Orchard 
Knob ; and he gives three orders, " Carry the rifle-pits ; 
re-form ; storm the second rifle-pits and the summit." 
Never were troops more eager for the fray. Safe in 
their ambush, they had been for hours passive specta- 
tors of the struggle, while their comrades were bleeding 
on the perilous edge of battle. For three days they 
had confronted the desperate task assigned to them. 
Every soldier had cast his eyes forward upon his im- 
perilled path; had scaled in imagination those frown- 
ing heights ; had measured the distance, and selected 
his track, — through the open timber in front, — across 
the unencumbered third of a mile, — the rifle-pits, — 
the steep ascent of five hundred yards, rugged with 
rocks, and embarrassed with timber, — the second rag- 
ged range of rifle-pits, — and, finally, the topmost crest, 
black with artillery. When the word " Forward ! " 
was given, the soldiers all started to their feet with 
alacrity, and sprang to their work with the pent-up 
fury and ardor which had been rioting in their breasts 
since the dawn. Their disciplined alacrity preserved 
the precision of the line through the open grove, al- 
though the guns were belching death from the crest: 
but, as the excited troops emerged from the timber, 
the entire formation broke into a double-quick; and 
Sheridan, who was in advance, and happened to be 
looking back, afterwards said, " I never saw such a 
terrible sight as the mass of approaching bayonets : 



324 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAXT. 

the men were on the run, the line had become 
ahnost a crowd. The rebels were unable to resist 
the effect upon their nerves of this waving, glittering 
mass of steel." Against such an irresistible onset 
of thirty thousand men, the rifle-pits were but bul- 
rushes : and such was the accelerated impulse and 
exultation of the line that Sheridan assumed the 
responsibility of countermanding the order to " re- 
form ; " for he saw the flags moving so triumphantly 
towards the steep ascent which was next to be won 
that the assurance of victory was already glowing 
in his heroic bosom. As that frightful mass of steel 
comes nearer and nearer, terror storms in front of it ; 
for the rebels in the second range of rifle-pits pros- 
trate themselves to the ground, burrow in the 
trenches, and the national troops trample over 
them like infuriated squadrons of cavalry. The vic- 
torious line still sternly advances right into the muz- 
zles of thirty cannon, which not only tear its face, 
but hatchel and enfilade its flank with slaus^hterino; 
grape, — right into the well-filled rifle-pits on the crest, 
which fairly singe it from blazing barrels, — unshaken 
in its well-knitted combination, though furrows ar6 
torn through it, and men drop from it by the hun- 
dred, over the crest, at six points at once, on to 
the embankment, — on to the cannon, slaying the 
artillerymen before they can discharge their pieces, 
and then, Avheeling to the south and to the north, 
sweeps the works in both directions with its reserved 
fire and with the captured field-batteries which were 
just devastating it from the blackened ridge. 

Instantly the soldiers, who have hitherto maintained 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 325 

their ranks, break into scourging parties. Regiments 
of rebels drop their arras in dismay, or cower down 
into the intrenchments, overwhelmed with unnatural 
fear. Wherever a stubborn detachment stands, it is 
devoured either by volleys or the bayonet ; and, if 
the stricken fugitives presume to show an organized 
front, they 'are dashed over the eastern brink, and 
pelted in their descent with stones, or any other 
weapon which fury furnishes. Hardee, with anguish 
in his face, rushes from Fort Buckner, and attempts 
to stem the tide of defeat by forming across the 
ridge the division which had been withdrawn from 
the centre and which was yet intact ; but th*e men 
drop from their ranks, and throw away their guns, 
and refuse to stand by their artillery. The shattered 
fragments which were driven towards the point that 
Sherman was assailing, Bragg impotently struggled 
to rally. He advanced into the fire, and exclaimed, 
" Here is your commander ! " and was answered by 
the derisive shout of an absurd army catch-phrase, 
" Here's your mule !" ^ 

While these events were transpiring. Hooker, on 
the left, breaks through the first rebel line. He en- 
counters a second, which he scatters like chaff from 
the threshing-floor. Now commences a process so 
fatal to a battle-line, — the rolling up of the left 
wing upon the exultant conquerors at its centre. 
Hooker sweeps forward on the crest, unresisted, driving 
an entire rebel division into the arms of Thomas, and 
capturing numerous detachments in his progress. 
The intrenched line of Missionary Ridge, from Fort 

1 Pollard, p. 457. 



326 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Breckenridge to Buckner, was carried in an hour 
from the time that Grant had ordered the charge. 

The general-in-chief was on the ridge, and crowded 
the pursuit with as much vigor as he had fought the 
battle. GLancing over the western brink, and seeing a 
long, straggling corps of fugitives with wagon-trains 
and field-batteries, he launched Sheridan's division 
upon their track. That officer clung to his prey with 
characteristic pertinacity, and, having driven it to bay 
upon a ridge a mile to the south of the battle-field, 
stormed up on three sides at once, dispersed the 
brigade, and captured artillery, prisoners, and the 
wagon-train. Hardly halting for breath, in the night 
and over unfamiliar roads, he follows on to Mission 
Mills, seven miles from the battle-field, gathering in 
trophies, spoils, and captives on the entire route. 
Promptly by daylight Sherman moves in pursuit 
by the Chickamauga Station, and Hooker by the 
Atlanta Railroad. Having given orders to Major- 
Gen. Granger to lead his corps forthwith to the 
rescue of Burnside, Grant accompanies Hooker's col- 
umns, for the purpose of supervising movements of 
so much importance. Late in the forenoon of the 
27th, Davis, who was leading Sherman's advance, 
reached the Chickamauga depot, to discover masses 
of flour and meal, wagons and caissons, gun-car- 
riages, pontoons, the equipage and the accumulated 
provisions and stores of an army of fifty thousand 
men, rolling up volumes of flame and smoke into the 
sky. Driving the enemy from the hills in the rear 
of the town, and following over a road strewn with 
the wrecks and debris of a vanquished army, he 



WHAT DID HE DO IN" THE CIVIL WAR ? 327 

encountered the rearguard of Bragg, and, after a 
sharp fight, scattered it in flight ; when darkness in- 
tervened, and drove Sherman to his bivouac. Hook- 
er had found the railroad bridge over the Chickr 
amauga Creek burned, and he was delayed for some 
time until his pontoons could be brought up. He 
finally crossed the river, and advanced to the Chick- 
amauga Hills, where he discovered the camp-fires 
still blazing in the enemy's abandoned camp. At ten 
o'clock he established here his position for the night. 
In the course of his march, he had despatched Palm- 
er with his brigade to Greyton, where he captured 
guns and prisoners. At early dawn on the 27th, 
Sherman resumed the chase, and, having reached 
Greyton, was joined by Palmer. The Atlanta Road 
was already overburdened by pursuers ; and Sherman 
deflected to the east, and destroyed the railroad be- 
tween Cleveland and Dalton, which was a part of the 
connection with Longstreet. While thus employed, 
Sherman received a message from Hooker, that the 
enemy was in his front in force. 

Hooker had continued his advance the same morn- 
ing towards Ringgold, over a road covered with 
broken artillery vehicles, ambulances, and the aban- 
doned accoutrements of a demoralized army. He 
passed through the town, and found Cleburne, with a 
strong rear-guard of Hardee's corps, posted in a 
narrow gorge of hills, almost unassailable by its great 
natural advantages. Hooker had in vain endeavored 
to carry the position by storm, and was reluctantly 
constrained to wait for his artillery. Grant was upon 
the ground, who, seeing Sherman moving from the 



328 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

east, directed him to strike Cleburne on the flank ; 
but, before Sherman could form his line, the enemy 
gave way precipitately before Hooker's field-guns, 
having withstood our assault sufficiently long to 
secure the safety of the flying baggage-trains. At 
one o'clock in the afternoon. Grant directed the pur- 
suit to be discontinued, and drew back Sherman to 
Chattanoocra. He left Hooker to hold Rino-o-old, and 
sent off detachments, in various directions, to sever 
every communication of Longstreet with his base of 
supplies. Thus terminated the series of engagements 
which bear the name of Chattanooga.^ Col. Parker, 
Sachem of the Six Nations, who was with Grant as 
aide during the pursuit of Bragg, furnishes us with 
some graphic particulars of Grant's behavior in the 
field. He says, '• When at Ringgold, we rode for 
half a mile in the face of the enemy, under an inces- 
sant fire of cannon and musketry ; nor did we ride fast, 
but upon an ordinary trot ; and not once, do I believe, 
did it enter the general's mind that he was in 
danger. I was by his side, and watched him closely. 
In riding that distance, we were going to the front ; 
and I could see that he was studying the positions of 
the two armies, and, of course, planning how to defeat 
the enemy, who was here making a most desperate 

1 Grant's losses in these battles were seven hundred and fifty-seven killed, 
four thousand live hundred and twenty-nine wounded, and three hundrcil ami 
thirty missing; total, five thousand six hundred and sixteen. The enemy's 
losses were fewer in killed and wounded, owing to the fuet that he was pro- 
tected \>y intrcnchments, while tiio national soldiers were without cover. Grant 
ca])tnnnl six thousand one hundred and forty-two prisoners, forty ])ioccs of 
artillery, sixty-nine artillery -carriages and caissons, and seven tliousand stands 
of small-arms, — by far the greatest capture, in the open field, which had beca 
made during the war. — Dadcau's Mililanj Historij, p. 524. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 329 

stand, and was slaughtering our men fearfully. After 
defeating and driving the enemy here, we returned 
to Chattanooga. 

"Another feature in Gen. Grant's personal move- 
ments is, that he requires no escort beyond his staiF, 
so reg-ardless of dano;er is he. Eoads are almost use- 
less to him ; for he takes short cuts through fields and 
woods, and will swim his horse through almost any 
stream that obstructs his way. Nor does it make any 
difference to him whether he has daylight for his 
movements ; for he will ride from breakfast until two 
o'clock in the morning, and that, too, without eating. 
The next day he will repeat the dose, until he fin- 
ishes the work. Now, such things come hard upon 
the staff; but they have learned how to bear it." ' 

This battle of Chattanooga was a specimen of the 
grand manoeuvring by which one general is con- 
strained to move according to the behests of the 
other. Even the splendid pageant presented to the 
gaze of Bragg's soldiers on Monday, when in front of 
our intrenchments Thomas's army of thirty thousand 
men was deploying into line and massing into column, 
was designed to contribute to the triumph of Wednes- 
day ; and that it did not entirely fail in its purpose is 
proved by a paragraph in the rebel commander's 
report, which accounted for the overthrow of his 
veterans, in a position "so strong that it ouglit to 
have been held by a line of skirmishers against any 
assaulting column, " ^ by saying, " They had for two 
days confronted the enemy, marshalling his immense 
forces in plain view, and exhibiting to their sight 

' Bragg's Report. 



330 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

such a superiority in numbers as may have intimidated 
weak minds and untried soldiers." ^ 

The occupation of Lookout Mountain, the demon- 
strations of Sherman, which threatened not only the 
right, but the supplies of the rebel army, compelled 
— as by the command of Grant — his antagonist to 
concentrate upon both wings ; for both were seriously 
imperilled. The continuous pounding at the same 
time, both by Sherman and Hooker, at his northern 
and southern gates, constrained Bragg finally to with- 
draw troops from the vital centre, which, with a full 
complement of defenders, was absolutely invincible. 
The natural strength of this part of his line was so 
great that Bragg never dreamed it was the main 
objective point of his enemy; and, in relating our 
decisive charge, Pollard says, "It was late in the 
afternoon, when, with an audacity wholly unexjpected, 
Grant ordered a general advance of his line to the 
crest of Missionary Ridge." 

So completely were all these effects anticipated in 
the preliminary orders which initiated the movement 
of Monday and Tuesday, that they constitute a veri- 
table record of Wednesday's performance. Chatta- 
nooga is remarkable as a battle in which all the con- 
certed combinations worked harmoniously : there was 
no failure nor break in any of the successive opera- 
tions upon which victory depended. No triumph on 
record was more decisive. It was not only a com- 
plete and thorough-going rout upon the field, but 
it foiled every ambitious hope which the Confed- 
erate leaders entertained of capturing our army at 

1 Bragg's Report. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 331 

Chattanooga, and carrying the war to the green acres 
of Tennessee, — to the wheat-fields of Ohio. It sur- 
rendered, as a strategical line, those mountains which 
are the natural boundaries between the temperate 
and semi-tropical States, from which we were enabled 
to hurl expeditions to the centre and extremities of 
Rebellion. It erected a mighty barrier between the 
cotton States and the wheat-plains of Kentucky and 
Tennessee, like the great river which the same sword 
had opened between the eastern and the trans-Missis- 
sippi domain of treason. Thus, within about a month 
from assuming command at Chattanooga, Grant had 
entirely redeemed the fortunes of war in the South- 
east, and given us unchallenged and secure dominion 
where he found disaster and impending subjugation. 
Argument would be wasted upon a mind which can 
resist such evidence of the ability which could accom- 
plish such results, or which can fail to see that this 
success was won more by the skilful dispositions of 
the commander than by the vis inertice of numbers, 
or can attribute to accident momentous effects which 
are so signally due to achievement. 

When Grant returned from the pursuit of Bragg, he 
found Granger had not moved to the relief of Burn- 
side with as much good-will and energy as was re- 
quired by the crisis ; and the ajDprehensions at Wash- 
ington induced him to send Sherman's corps, also, to 
raise the siege of Knoxville. I do not intend to fol- 
low these expeditions, nor to devote any time to the 
orders which Grant daily despatched for their direc- 
tion, nor to the success which eventually crowned 
these movements. Such details would be merely 



332 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

cumulative proof of that activity and vigilance as a 
commander of which the whole career I have already 
detailed is a conclusive exemplification. 

I wish to improve this opportunity to illustrate 
another of his distinguished traits as a general : I 
allude to his care and watchfulness over the sick and 
wounded of his armies. Grant found at Chatta- 
nooga upwards of three thousand maimed survivors 
of the Chickamauga catastrophe; his own victories 
had added nearly five thousand additional inmates to 
the hospitals; while the mere ordinary ratio of sick 
in a population of sixty thousand would, with his 
wounded, constitute as large a force of invalids as the 
whole army which Scott led from Vera Cruz to 
Mexico. I will show that Grant was not so absorbed 
in what the French call " grand tactics," and the mul- 
titudinous details of his vast military jurisdiction, 
but what he could render pliant to his purpose every 
aid and advantage which could be derived from a 
condition of public sentiment such as never before 
existed in the world. Our great Rebellion, w^hich 
stands out unique in history, furnishes more contrasts 
than parallels. It was more colossal in its proportions 
than any other war; it was waged by millions of 
people, suddenly summoned to the camp from every 
avocation of peaceful life ; it raged through an im- 
mense territory, greater than all the European States 
which were the theatre of Frederick's, Marlborough's, 
Napoleon's, most extensive campaigns. 

But in bold relief stands out this remarkable con- 
trast with all previous wars, that never before were 
the people of a nation so immediately concerned in 



■WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 333 

the support and direction of hostilities : it was, in 
fact, a. war accepted by the people, and maintained 
by the people for the people. When it became una- 
voidable, every loyal non-combatant in the "nation for 
whom the combatants were contending determined 
that the inevitable hardships and sufferings of the 
camp and the battle should receive every alleviation 
which sympathy could dictate and wealth command, 
and that the moral stamina of a nation thus turned 
into the field should, at least, be saved in this terrible 
contest. It was this determination which led to a 
self-sacrifice, devotion, munificence, upon the part 
of the citizens, which is altogether unparalleled in 
the history of our race. There was not a loyal 
woman in the North who did not contribute time or 
labor or money to the success of our arms ; and even 
little girls went from house to house collecting small 
sums, comforts, and delicacies for the army. The 
names of ^^ Nimble digits," " Busy bees," "Alert" clubs, 
will be a perpetual memento of the labors of minis- 
tering spirits too young to understand that the agony 
of a nation struggling for its sovereignty impresied 
even their little feet for errands of mercy, exacted 
for its deliverance the service even of their infantile 
fingers. 

But there was another class of intrepid women 
whose adventurous disposition urged to more hazard- 
ous enterprises, where they displayed a fortitude and 
courage as signal as that which carried the Maid of 
Saragossa to the battery where her lover had fallen, 
to the battered wall to lead the sallying host ; as 
noble as that which bore Grace Darling through the 



334 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

treaclierous breakers ; the heroine of Scutari with robe 
unsullied through the pestilential camp. These were 
they who followed their husbands and brothers to the 
field of battle and to rebel prisons ; who went down 
into the very edge of the fight to rescue the wounded, 
and cheer and comfort the dying with gentle minis- 
trations; who labored in field and city hospitals, and 
on the dreadful hospital-boats, where the severely 
wounded were received ; who penetrated the lines of 
the enemy on dangerous missions ; who were angels 
of mercy in a thousand dreadful emergencies.-^ In- 
deed, the surrender of old and young, of every age 
and of both sexes, of all ranks, of every public place 
and of every private retreat, to the armies who were 
battling in the field, was a complete illustration of 
Wordsworth's ideal picture : " When a people are 
called suddenly to fight for their liberty, and are 
sorely pressed upon, their best field of battle is the 
floors upon which their children have played, the 
chambers in which the family of each man has slept, 
upon or under the roofs by which they have been 
sheltered, in the gardens of their recreation, in the 
street or in the market-place, before the altars of 
their temples, and among their congregated dwell- 
ings, blazing or uprooted." 

But even more noticeable than this universal 
ministration of loyal females were the great organ- 
izations to which they so largely contributed, — the 
Christian and Sanitary Commissions, disbursing mil- 
lions annually for the physical relief and spiritual 
care of the soldiers ; and which could have existed in 

1 lutroduction to " Women of the War." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR '> 335 

no other country upon the globe. It was these 
institutions which, acting independent of the pur- 
veying department and as adjuvants of the medical 
department, without controlling or interfering in any 
way with the arrangements of either, extorted an 
admission from "The Edinburgh Medical Journal," 
"that the sick and wounded soldiers of no other 
service were so well cared for as in the federal army." 
Grant first became acquainted with these com- 
missions at Fort Donelson, where the number of 
wounded was so great that all the ordinary means 
of relief were entirely inadequate, and the whole 
force of these self-organized sanitary associations were 
called into service. He was not only influenced to 
lend them his hearty co-operation and support from 
sentiments of humanity, but also because the res- 
toration of a disciplined veteran, who had been 
baptized in battle, was of inestimable value to the 
nation. He believed with Lander, that " kings play 
at war unfairly with republics : they can only lose 
some earth, and some creatures they value as little, 
while republics lose in every soldier a part of them- 
selves." The hearty aid and support which Grant 
in his capacity of general constantly furnished to the 
agents and delegates of these commissions constitute 
one of the most interesting chapters in his war 
experience. While engaged in his onerous duties at 
Fort Donelson, he found time to write with his own 
hand the passes which admitted the clergymen and 
laymen sent by them through all the lines of the 
Army of the Tennessee. At Shiloh, where their 
services were so imperiously required by the con- 



336 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT, 

gregated wounded of both belligerents .after two 
days of battle, he not only furnished passes and 
orders for transportation to the deputations of both 
commissions, but he accompanied them from tent to 
tent, and assured them " that the army felt the 
same gratitude to them which the loyal public 
felt for the army." When the agent of the Christian 
Commission first appeared at Chattanooga, after 
Grant's jurisdiction was extended over all the ter- 
ritory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, 
he manifested a strono;er interest in the alleviations 
which these noble charities furnished to his suffering 
soldieiy. I cannot better illustrate his zeal and heart- 
iness in this philanthropic service than by quoting 
from the letter of one of the missionaries of the 
Christian Commission, written during that period of 
immense labor which Grant endured immediately 
after assuming command at Chattanooga. The letter 
is dated just a week previous to the battle. " I went 
to the headquarters of the Division of Mississippi 
this morning. With fear and trembling I appealed 
to Gen. Grant, preparing my document carefully, and 
making it general, so as to cover all his command. 
I asked for five things : 1. An indorsement of the 
commission by the commanding general to his of- 
ficers, authorizing them to give all facilities not 
inconsistent with the public service. 2. Passes for 
delegates within the lines. 3. Transportation for 
delegates and stores. 4. Use of military telegraph. 
5. Privilege of purchasing of commissary and quar- 
termaster's department for the use of the delegates. 
The general received me easily ; read my papers with 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 337 

attention • said an order should be issued, covering 
the points made, as soon as he had leisure to prepare 
it; laid my paper on the adjutant's desk, saying, 
" There is a paper to which I wish to give attention." 
He then directed the adjutant to make out a pass 
and free transportation for me to any part of his 
entire command till further order, and put his 
autograph to it. I came back all the way to our 
quarters with my heart full of the first line of the 
doxology in ' long metre.' " ^ It is unnecessary to 
say that these privileges were all granted by General 
Order No. 33 ; and the grateful agent writes in ad- 
dition, " Gen. Grant's facilities have given us an 
entirely new footing." 

According to the testimony of the agents of the 
commission. Grant did not restrict his sympathy for 
th€ soldiers to the official aid which he furnished to 
those who were ministering to their welfare ; but he 
visited the cots of patients, and even sent aides and 
ambulances to the infirm who desired a personal 
interview with the commanding general of the. depart- 
ment. A delegate writes, " An old soldier, lying on 
his cot, bent up with rheumatism, beckoned me to his 
side. He asked if Ulysses Grant was in Chattanooga ; 
and, giving me his name, he instructed me to tell 
the general how he was, and that he should like to 
come and see him as soon as he could walk. I sent 
the name to headquarters, with the statement of the 
soldier. An orderly came down at once to the hos- 
pital, with the compliments of the general. Ho would 
be happy to receive Private , and w^ould send 

1 Annals of the United-States Christian Commission, p. 149. 
22 



338 LIFE OP GENERAL GEANT. 

an ambulance for liim when he could ride. Under 
this treatment the stiffened limbs grew supple, and in 
two days the private reported himself at the general's 
quarters. He afterwards told me that the general 
was very glad to see him, and that they talked over 
old times, when they were boys, and lived in the same 
neighborhood ; and, said he, ' The general owned up, 
that in wrestling I used to throw him more than half 
the time.'" We have also presented to us in the 
" Annals of the Christian Commission " an inside view 
of its famous kitchen at the Point of Rocks, which 
represents the milder characteristics of the inflexible 
and stern soldier who was at that time en2:ao:ed in 
prosecuting his plan of wearing out armed resistance 
by " mere attrition : " " These kitchens were the most 
important in the entire service. Their fame was 
spread abroad ; and many came from far and near to 
see for themselves whether it were true that sick and 
wounded in a field-hospital, within range of the 
enemy's guns, could be so well provided for, and so 
delicately and systematically served. Gen. Grant 
made a special visit to these kitchens, in disguise. 
He examined the diet-lists, and stood by and saw the 
ladies issue dinner, and then went through some of 
the wards while the patients were eating. A soldier, 
mistakinoj him for a delegate of the Christian Com- 
mission, called out, ^ See here. Christian, won't you 
'bring me a pair of socks ? ' The general responded, 
* I '11 see that you get them,' and passed on. I had 
often spoken to him of our work, and as often urged 
him to visit some of our kitchens ; and I was very 
much gratified when he told me that he had visited 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 339 

the kitchens at Point of Rocks, had seen the ladies 
issue dinner, and found that the patients in that hos- 
pital lived better than he did, and that he was very 
much pleased." 

While dwelling for a moment on the personal char- 
acteristics of Gen. Grant, I cannot omit the evidence 
which Gen. Badeau has furnished, that during this 
trying year the friendship between the superior and 
his favorite lieutenant continued warm and un- 
broken. When Grant despatched Sherman from 
Vicksburg to re-enforce Rosecrans, he wrote to him, 
" I hope you will be in time to aid in giving the rebels 
the worst, or best, thrashing they have had in this war 
I have constantly had the feeling that I shall lose you 
from this command entirely. Of course I do not ob- 
ject to seeing your sphere of usefulness enlarged ; and 
I think it should have been enlarged long ago, having 
an eye to the public good alone. But it needs no 
assurance from me, general, that, taking a more selfish 
view, while I would heartily approve such a change. 
1 would deeply regret it on my own account." When 
Sherman received the first intimation that Grant was 
to be appointed to the command of the Military 
District of Mississippi, the co-adjutor wa^ote to his 
chief, " Accept the command of the great army of the 
centre ; don't hesitate. By your presence at Nash- 
ville, you will unite all discordant elements, and im- 
press the enemy in proportion. All success and honor 
to you ! " and added, a day or two later, " I am very 
anxious you should go to Nashville, as foreshadowed 
by Halleck, and, chiefly, as you can harmonize all con- 
flicts of feeling that may exist in that vast crowd. 



340 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

^^osecrans, Burnside, and Sherman, with their subordi- 
nates, would be asiiamed of petty quarrels, if you 
were behind and near them, — between them and 
Washington. Next, the union of such armies, and 
the direction of it, is worthy your ambition. I shall 
await news from you with great anxiety." 

Authentic anecdotes of the foregoing description 
are exceedingly rare in Gen. Grant's career, — simply 
because, in his social address and presentation of him- 
self, he is an exceedingly undemonstrative man. With 
feelings as strong and intense as ever dwelt in the 
human bosom, the instances and the occasions upon 
which they found utterance, either in action or speech, 
were very infrequent. Napoleon, with his impetuous 
disposition and voluble tongue, would fly through 
camp and hospital with a canteen in his hand, place 
it to the lips of the sick and the wounded, and utter 
to a thousand men lively and pithy sentiments, which 
became the proverbs and vocabulary of his army. 
Sherman, with his nervous and enthusiastic tempera- 
ment, continually betrayed his emotions in words, 
action, and gestures. When the pontoon bridges were 
thrown over the Tennessee at Chattanooga, Sherman 
leaped ashore, and, seizing Gen. Howard by the hand, 
exclaimed, "The armies of the Tennessee and the 
Potomac are at last united." Grant, who was over- 
burdened with joy at the arrival of his favorite lieu- 
tenant, with that incomparable army corps at his back, 
merely greets Sherman with the salutation, " Glad to 
see vou, general." There is nothin«f dramatic in Grant's 
disposition or habits; and, if I should attribute to Grant 
sententious exclamations and histrionic action, I 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 341 

should merely belie the subject of this biography, and 
convince everybody who knows the man that I was 
drawing upon my imagination for my facts. His 
nature is reserved and meditative, and his habits are 
true to his nature. Exhibitions of emotion and senti- 
ment, which give so much liveliness to the narrative 
of great exploits, are rare exceptions in his career. 
The tone of his despatches to Halleck, after the most 
exciting achievements, was his habitual tone with both 
soldiers and officers under his command. 

It is another peculiarity of Grant that he penned 
with his own hand all his telegrams, despatches, and 
orders, vvhile in the service. No aide or adjutant 
presumed to retouch or decorate them. Men most 
skilful in composition have utterly failed to imitate 
his style. It is straightforward, unpretending, rug- 
ged, and energetic, like himself He habitually se- 
lects the most convenient word or phrase, without 
any regard to elegance, but unconsciously adopts 
expressions of vigor and force. The letter to Gen. 
Sherman which I have just quoted is a fair speci- 
men ; another may be found in his letter to Gen. 
Thomas, after the capitulation of Vicksburg, in 
which he says, " The capture of Vicksburg has 
proved a bigger thing than I supposed it would." 
His letter-books, containing his despatches and com- 
munications with subordinates, with the general-in- 
chief, and the War Department, are most volumi- 
nous, and are invaluable as biographic data: They 
constitute, in fact, Grant's own account of his own 
campaigns. After the siege of Knoxville was raised, 
and Longstreet driven into the mountains for winter 



342 LIFE OF GENERAL GRAIS'T, 

quarters, Grant issued a coiigratulatovy order to his 
three armies, which is more elaborate in composition 
than any document which I have seen from his pen. 
I should have presumed that it had been emended 
by a secretary, if I had not received authentic assur- 
ance that it was entirely his own production. It is a 
sententious compendium of the results of the Chat- 
tanooga campaign. I seize it with more avidity, be- 
cause autobiographic material, in the course of this 
volume, has but seldom lightened my labor and en- 
lightened my judgment : — 

" The genera^ commanding takes this opportunity 
of returnino; his sincere thanks and cong^ratulations 
to the brave Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, the 
Tennessee, and their comrades from the Potomac, for 
the recent splendid and decisive successes achieved 
over the enemy. In a short time you have recovered 
from him the control of the Tennessee River from 
Bridgeport to Knoxville. You dislodged him from 
his great stronghold upon Lookout Mountain, drove 
him from Chattanooga valley, wrested from his de- 
termined grasp the possession of Missionary Ridge, 
repelled with heavy loss to him his repeated assaults 
upon Knoxville, forcing him to raise the siege there, 
driving him at all points, utterly routed and discom- 
fited, beyond the limits of the State. By your noble 
heroism and determined courage you have most 
effectually defeated the plans of the enemy for re- 
gaining possession of the States of Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

" You have secured positions from which no rebel- 
lious power can drive or dislodge you. For all this 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 343 

the general commanding thanks you, collectively and 
individually. The loyal people of the United States 
thank and bless you. Their hopes and prayers for 
your success against this unholy Rebellion are with 
you daily. Their faith in you will not be in vain. 
Their hopes will not be blasted. Their prayers to 
Almighty God will be answered. You will go to 
other fields of strife; and, with the invincible, 
bravery and unflinching loyalty to justice and right 
which have characterized you in the past, you will 
prove that no enemy can withstand you, and that no 
defences, however formidable, can check your onward 
march." 

The foregoing order was dated the 10th of.Decem- 
ber, 1863, and the day before the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the Thirty-eighth Congress, then in its 
first session, unanimously passed a joint resolution of 
thanks to Major-Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and the offi- 
cers and soldiers under his command during the Re- 
bellion, and providing that the president of the 
United States shall cause a medal to be struck, to be 
presented to Major-Gen. Grant in the name of the 
people of the United States of America. The de- 
sign of the medal was executed by Leutze. The 
obverse presents a medallion bust of the hero, en- 
compassed by a wreath of laurel ; underneath the 
image is the name which he bears, with the dates of 
his numerous victories, crowded into a space too 
small even for such brief commemoration. The whole 
is surrounded by a galaxy of stars. On the reverse 
is an American eagle, with wings expanded for 
flight. Seated gracefully upon- the bird is a draped 



344 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

bas-relief of Fame, with the symbolical trumpet in 
her right hand ; in her left is the historic scroll, with 
the names of Grant's most memorable achievements 
compressed upon its narrow tablets. The helmet of 
Fame is Indianesque, adorned with feathers ; against 
her breast leans the emblematic escutcheon of the 
United States. A single sprig of the pine and the 
.palm, typical of the Northern and the Southern 
States, cross each other beneath tliis group; and 
above it, in a curved line, the words, "Proclaim 
liberty throughout the land!" The edge is sur- 
rounded, like the obverse, with a cluster of stars, in 
a style peculiar to the illuminated manuscripts of 
the Byzantine period, and intended to suggest that 
they may yet be innumerable. 

At an early day in the session of this Congress, a 
bill was offered in the House by Mr. Washburne of 
Illinois, reviving the grade of lieutenant-general in 
the Army of the United States. It was referred to 
the Committee on Military Affairs, of which I hap- 
pened to be a member. It was well understood that 
the purpose of the bill was to promote Gen. Grant 
to the chief command of the army! It was the 
genuine conviction of those who supported it, that 
he was pre-eminently qualified for this responsible 
position, while the real animus of those of the 
Republican party who opposed it was an honest 
distrust of his capacity. I do not mean to intimate 
that any such distrust was openly avowed, but found 
more courteous expression in various arguments 
which were devised to defeat the measure. In tlie 
House Committee on Military Affairs, consisting of 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? BAb 

nine members, five were unconditional supporters 
of the bill and the candidate ; three were either op- 
posed to the principle or the man ; one preferred a 
lieutenant-general at the head of the army instead 
of a^ major-general detailed to xommand it, but was 
unwilling to assume any responsibility in selecting 
the incumbent. 

Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois reported it to the 
House on the 25th of January, 1864, with a recom- 
mendation from the majority of the committee that 
it should pass; but its consideration was postponed 
for a week, on motion of Mr. Pendleton of Ohio, 
upon the ground that -it had not been printed, and 
that members were uninformed respecting its provis- 
ions. When it came up for action on the followino- 
Monday, it was opposed as unnecessary for the pur- 
pose of centralizing military authority ; because the 
power to place any general officer in chief command 
of the army was already conferred upon the presi- 
dent. It was answered to this, that the same defer- 
ence would never be paid 'to, nor the same confidence 
be manifested in, any general officer detailed for chief 
command, that would be for a general who had won 
supreme position by gallant and meritorious seivice 
in front of the enemy. It was further urged in 
opposition, that the measure was impolitic ; because 
competition would be closed, by bestowing the chief 
prize for martial emulation before the war was fin- 
ished ; because, if the promotion had been made at 
an earlier period of the war, demonstrated incapacity 
would have been at the head of the army ; because, 
moreover, it would withdraw from active service in 



346 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the field a general who had been eminently successful 
there, and immure him in a Washington bureau. It 
was said, in reply to these arguments, that, while the 
fortunes of other generals had fluctuated within a few 
months, the star of one had been in the ascendant for 
more than three years, and that the country could not 
afford to dispense with tried ability in chief position 
till the war was over. Mr. Farnsworth said, — 

" "We are now very near to the close of the third year of this 
war ; and, while it is true that many generals in the army may he 
up to-day aod down to-morrow, and that their fortunes fluctuate, 
it is not true of the general to whom this legislation applies. His 
star has been steadily rising. He h/ls been growing greater and 
greater day by day, rising from an obscure position, scarcely 
known out of the county in Avhich he resided. By his masterly 
ability he now stands, without saying any thing to the disparage- 
ment of other generals, head and shoulders over every other gen- 
eral in the army of the United States. He has been tried, — tried 
long enough ; and, if his star were to go down to-morrow, he has 
still done enough to entitle him to this prize of which the gentle- 
man from Ohio speaks." 

Mr. Washburne said, — 

" A great deal has been said as to what might have happened 
if some such bill had passed two years ago ; that such or such a 
man might have received the honor, and implying that tlie party 
upon Avhom the honor may be conferred under this bill may prove 
himself unworthy. How much, I would ask, is now to be re- 
quired of a general before he can have the confidence of this 
House? Has not Gen. Grant earned that confidence, and proved 
himself worthy of full trust in the greatest positions ? I demand 
to know what would have been our position as a nation, in the 
present struggle, had it not been for the achievements of Gen. 
Grant. Where can you point to a scries of greater triumphs 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 347 

than he has achieved, — a more complete succession of victories, 
— which are unsurpassed in history, — and which for the brilliancy 
of their achievement, and in furtherance of the gi'eat cause in 
which he has so nobly fought, have made his name and his fame 
as lasting as the history of the nation ? " 

In reference to the insinuation that the appoint- 
ment contemplated would withdraw Gen. Grant from 
the field, Mr. Farnsworth said, — 

" In respect to the last branch of the gentleman's argument, 
that it is not safe to take this general from the field, I have only 
this to say : he is no carpet knight ; and it does not follow necessa- 
rily, that, because an officer is placed in command of all the armies 
of the United States, he is therefore to keep an office in the second 
or third story of a building in Washington, whence he is to issue 
his orders. I expect that the man who will be selected, in pur- 
suance of this act, to command the armies of the United States 
will command them, and that in the field. "Wherever his presence 
is most needed, there I expect he will be. When Gen. Scott 
was commander of the Army of the United States, he did not 
place himself in the city of Washington, and issue his orders, in 
time of Avar. Pie took the field, and put himself at the head of 
the largest corps. He commanded in the field, — not in the city of 
Washington. That I expect will be done by whoever will be 
selected by the president of the United States." 

It was in response to this cavil, that Mr. Wash- 
burne stated a fact which is too remarkable an illus- 
tration of Gen. Grant's character to be omitted in 
any biography : ■ — 

" I have spoken of the interest I feel in this bill ; but, if I know 
myself, it is a feeling that rises far above the considerations of 
personal friendship which I entertain for the distinguished soldier 
whose name has been connected with it. I am not here to speak 



348 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

for Gen. Grant. No man with liis consent has ever mentioned 
his name in connection with any position. I say Avhat I know to 
be true, wlien I allege that every promotion he has received since 
he first entered the service to put down this Rebellion was moved 
without his knowledge or consent ; and, in regard to this very mat- 
ter of lieutenant-general, after the bill was introduced,- and his 
name mentioned in connection therewith, he wrote me and admon- 
ished me tliat he had been highly honored already by the Govern- 
ment, and did not ask or deserve any thing more in the shape of 
honors or promotion ; and that a success over the enemy Ava3 
what he craved above every thing else ; that he only desired to 
hold such au influence over those under his command as to use 
them to the best advantage to secure that end. Such is the lan- 
guage of this patriotic and single-minded soldier, ambitious only 
of serving his country and doing his whole duty. Sir, whatever 
this House may do, the country will do justice to Gen. Grant. 
We can see that. I think I can appreciate that myself." 

At an early period of the debate, Mr. Ross, a 
prominent Democrat from Illinois, submitted the fol- 
lowing amendment : " And we respectfully recom- 
mend the appointment of Major-Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 
for the position of lieutenant-general," which was 
finally carried by the strong vote of a hundred 
and eleven to nineteen. The bill reviving the grade 
was passed the same day in the House by a vote of 
ninety-six to forty-one. 

The first section of the bill as it went into the Sen- 
ate was as follows : — 



" That the grade of lieutenant-general be, and the same is, here- 
by revived in the Army of the United States ; and the president 
is hereby authorized, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to ap- 
point, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a com- 
mander of the army, to be selected during war from among those 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 349 

officers in the military service of the United States — not beloAV 
the grade of major-general — most distinguished for courage, 
skill, and ability ; and who, being commissioned as lieutenant- 
general, shall be authorized, under the direction of the president, 
to command the armies of the United States. And we respectful- 
ly recommend the appointment of Major-Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 
for the position of lieutenant-general." 

The Committee on Military Afiairs in the Senate 
proposed amendments to the section, which struck 
out the words " commander of the army " and in- 
serted " lieutenant-general," and struck out the words 
" during the war," so that the clause read, — 

" And the president is hex'eby authorized, whenever he shall 
deem it expedient, to appoint, by and with the advice and consent 
of the Senate, a lieutenant-general, to be selected from among 
those officers in the military service of the United States — not below 
the grade of major-general — most distinguished for courage, skill, 
and ability." 

Mr. Trumbull objected to the modification, and 
said, — 

" That amendment involves the whole character of the bill and 
its importance, as it seems to me. The bill, as it came to us fi'om 
the House of Representatives, was intended, not simply to confer 
the honor of lieutenant-general upon the person who should be 
selected by the president of the United States as most distinguished 
for his courage, skill, and ability, but it was intended also, in 
conferring this high honor upon him, to give him some command 
corresponding with the title conferred by it. If you strike out 
these words, as proposed by the Committee on Military Affairs, you 
deprive the resolution of its value, so far as it is intended to place 
the lieutenant-general in command over other generals." 



350 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Mr. Nesmith, a member of the Military Committee 
of the Senate, succinctly stated the reasons which 
had influenced the committee in proposing the 
amendments : — 

" I differ with the senator from Illinois in relation to the con- 
struction that he puts on the amendment which was made in the 
Committee on Military Affairs. I do not apprehend that it is 
necessary in a bill creating additional rank for an army officer to 
determine in the terms of that bill what his rights shall be as 
a commanding officer. If a lieutenant-general is appointed, he will 
be superior in rank to any officer that we now have in the United- 
States army ; and, in virtue of that superiority, he will be entitled 
to command all other officers Avhile in service with them. The 
bill Avhich we passed at the last session of Congress, providing that 
the president might select any one of two officers of the same 
grade, serving in the same field or in the same department, and 
place him in command of that field or department without refer- 
ence to his relative rank with other officers of the same grade in 
the service, does not apply to the lieutenant-general, — as there is no 
lieutenant-general now ; and, if the rank is created, there can be 
but one. The plain inference to my mind is, that, if a lieutenant- 
general is created, he is the superior military officer in the gov- 
ernment, subordinate only to the president of the United States, 
Avho is commander-in-chief, and that all other officers are subor- 
dinate to him. There is no power by law now to make him sub- 
ordinate to any major-general, or to place him under the command 
of any other officer. 

" Now, sir, I am opposed to providing by law that any single in- 
dividual shall be commander of the armies of the United States, 
for this simple reason : the contingencies and the incidents which 
are always occurring in war sometimes make it necessary to have 
changes. Suppose you pass this bill with a provision that the 
lieutenant-general shall be the commander of the armies of the 
United States. During the recess of Congress, a dozen contin- 
gences might arise which might render it necessary that some other 
person should have the command of the army, that this officer 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 351 

should be retired from active duty, or at least deprived of his com- 
mand. I think with all these contingences, all these probabilities 
likely to arise, that the president should not be deprived of the 
discretion of determining in a time of great public danger, when 
Congress is not in session, who should exercise that command. I 
shall vote for no bill that provides that any particular individual 
shall be the commander of the army of the United States for 
these very reasons." 

The first amendment was passed by a vote of 
twenty-five to fifteen ; and a second amendment was 
immediately offered, as follows : — 

" After the word ' ability,' strike out the following words : 
' And who, being commissioned as lieutenant-general, shall be 
authorized, under the direction of the president, to command the 
armies of the United States ; and that we respectfully recommend 
the appointment of Major-Gen. Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois for 
the position of lieutenant-general ' ' 

It was contended, in support of this amendment, 
that it was an invasion of the prerogatives of the 
president for Congress to designate by bill who 
should be commander of the armies of the United 
States, or whom he should recommend for the grade 
of lieutenant-general. Senators who favored the 
modification, and those who opposed it, avowed alike 
their preference for Gen. Grant, and disclaimed any 
intention to disparage his eminent services. Mr. 
Howe of Wisconsin said, " I feel that the strikini^ 
out of this clause is really a reproach to this gallant 
officer. I dislike extremely to see the words go out 
of the bill." Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, the chair- 
man of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, 
said in reply to this remark, — 



352 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

" I am sure, Mr. President, that the senator from "Wisconsin is 
altogether mistaken in the views he has expressed. There is no 
reproach intended, and there certainly is no reproach in the 
amendments themselves. I hope tlyit the amendments proposed 
by the Committee on Military Affliirs will be accepted by the 
Senate ; for the bill, as thus amended, makes a lieutenant-general 
who commands the armies of the United States under the authority 
of the president. Full, ample, and complete authority is given. 
If Gen. Grant should be appointed, — and everybody knows that 
he will be appointed — 

Mr. Wilkinson. Then, Avhy not say so? 

Mr. Wilson. Why should you say so? Why is it proper for 
the Congress of the United States to tell the president whom he 
shall nominate ? There is an impropriety in it, if not an indecency 
in it, toward the president. There is certainly an impropriety 
toward the Senate of the United States, that is to pass upon the 
nomination, in putting into the act a declaration that a certain man 
is recommended for the appointment. Everybody knows that the 
country expects that Gen. Grant will be appointed. We expect 
it. The president expects it. The president . is willing and 
anxious to do it. He intends to do it. Then, why should we put 
this provision in this act? Why not trust the president ? Why 
not trust the man who has stood firmly by Gen. Grant? If Gen. 
Grant should be appointed, as he will be appointed, there will 
be no man in America who can give an order to him but the 
president of the United States. Gen. Halleck could not give him 
an order : nobody could give him an order. Gen. Ilalleck cannot 
command the armies with a lieutenant-general in the field. The 
president of the United States had no authority to make a junior 
brigadier command a senior brigadier or major general, until 
we gave him that authority, nearly two years ago. Now the 
president has authority, when officers meet in the field, to 
designate which officer of the same rank shall command ; but 
he cannot make a brigadier-general command a major-general. 
The president of the United States cannot put any major-general 
under the command of a brigadier-general. There is no law 
in the country authdrizing him to do it. My argument is, that 
the bill as proposed to be amended by the Military Committee 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAB ? 353 

is framed in the proper manner, and uses the proper language. 
By it the authority of the executive is not trenched upon ; the 
proprieties in regard to the Senate are not interfered with ; 
and the bill, in that form, makes a lieutenant-general who cannot 
be commanded by anybody but the president. He wJll be the 
commander of the army, unless the president of the United States 
chooses to set him aside, and send him to some special command, 
— retire him; in other words, disgrace him. The bill as proposed 
to be amended gives him the entire power, under the president 
of the United States, to command the armies ; and the president 
has not the power to put any major-general over him." 

Mr. Lane of Indiana, a member of the same com- 
mittee, said, — 

" Now, sir, it does seem to me perfectly apparent that the 
report of the Committee on Military Affairs should be adopted, 
and that it is all that shoidd be required. "We should not in 
advance tell the president whom he shall appoint. 1 have no doubt 
he will appoint Gen. Grant, and I should rejoice at the appoint- 
ment ; but I am unwilling to pass an act of Congress recommend- 
ing him for it. I have no doubt he will be placed by military law 
and usage in the command of the army of the United States ; but 
I am not willing to tie the hands of the president, and say he shall 
not displace him the very first moment he finds him incompetent 
to the task imposed upon him. 

" I am not willing that this discussion shall assume the shape, 
that all those who sustain the report of the committee are neces- 
sarily opposed to Gen. Grant. There was no such feelin"- in 
the committee. "We wished to compliment Gen. Grant accord- 
ing to the legislative precedents heretofore established. "We 
wished to compliment Gen. Grant, always reserving our own 
proper self-respect and the dignity of the Congress of the United 
States." 

Mr. Nesmith of the same committee said, — 

" I appreciate the services of Gen. Grant. I am anxious for 
the passage of the bill, and I am anxious that Gen. Grant 

23 



354 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

shall have the appointment. There is no honor that I would not 
confer upon him, as I expect myself to vote for him for president 
of the United States ; and, being willing to cast a vote of that kind, 
I should not be willing to do any thing here to-day which tended 
to degrade him. This talk about degradation is mere talk : there 
is no point in it. The facts are, as has been ably demonstrated 
by the senator from Indiana, that other officers who have been 
appointed under previous acts or resolutions of Congress were 
not designated in those acts or resolutions; and it was not con- 
sidered as derogating any thing from their character or their 
reputation, because there was no such intention." 



Mr. Doolittle said 



" I, for one, feel satisfied that we shall not make a mistake if 
we say that we create the office of lieutenant-general, and that 
Gen. Grant is the man to fill it. For two years in succession 
he has done nothing but win victory, — from the capture of Fort 
Donelson, at Grand Gulf, on Black River, at Jackson, around 
Vicksburg, and, last and not least, at the last battles of Chattanoo- 
ga, where he secured, in my opinion, forever within our military 
possession Eastern Tennessee. He has gained and earned, by two 
years of continual success, this rank and grade ; and he is the man 
whom the war has demonstrated to be the proper man, and which 
all concede has demonstrated to be the proper man, to be, next to 
the president and under the president, the commander-in-chief of 
our armies. As a friend says, he has won seventeen battles, he 
has captured a hundred thousand prisoners, he has taken five 
hundred pieces of artillery, and innumerable thousands of small- 
arms on all these fields. He has organized victory from the 
beginning ; and I want him in a position where he can organize 
final victory, and bring it to our armies, and put an end to this 
Rebellion." 

Mr. Johnson of Maryland said, — 

" Mr. President, I do not deem it necessary to disclaim any 
purpose in what I have said, or in what I am about to say, to 
disparage Gen. Grant or the president of the United States. The 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 855 

former has covered himself all over with a renown which the 
country recognizes. The latter is the president of the United 
States, and as such is entitled to our respect ; and, whatever rights 
may belong to him in that capacity, it is our duty, and it should be 
our pleasure, to recognize." 

Mr. Sherman, who was opposed to all the amend- 
ments, and wished to vote for the bill pure and 
unadulterated, as it came from the House, said, — 

" His movement up the Cumberland and Tennessee, the battles 
at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and afterwards the battle of 
Shiloh, were victories of which we had no example in this war 
before. They were victories won at a time when the whole coun- 
try was under discouragement, when the Army of the Potomac 
had been defeated, or lay slumbering under its new general. They 
were the first clarion notes in this war ; and the victory at Fort 
Donelson has scarcely been exceeded since. 

" But look a little further. In my opinion, thbre is not in our 
history a campaign similar to that about Vicksburg. Vicksburg 
had been assaulted by land and by water. It had been declared 
to be impregnable. Our enemy so boasted, and consoled them- 
selves for many losses by their new Gibraltar. The papers that 
came back to us from Europe declared that Vicksburg Was im- 
pregnable, and no force of the United States could capture it ; and 
yet, after discouraging failure, a grand campaign was planned by 
Gen. Grant with his distinguished subordinates, far. away from 
Washington, without any aid or assistance whatever from Wash- 
ington. Soon we hear, that, with the hearty and important aid of 
the navy, he had run the gunboats by the forts, had marched his 
army around on the left bank of the Mississippi, had crossed the 
Mississippi, and then commenced that unparalleled campaign in 
which, after a series of battles each one of which was a great vic- 
tory, he finally came into the rear of Vicksburg, besieged and 
captured it. In these successive battles and victories, he captured 
or destroyed an army greater than his own, dyt'ided in twain the^ 
territory occupied by the enemy, and opened to our commerce the 
great artery of the West. All that the most sanguine had hoped 



856 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

for«he had accomplished. But this was not all. Gen. Rosecran.?, 
his equal in rank and command, had been defeated at the battle 
of Chickamauga, and his army was environed with perils and 
difficulties. Gen. Grant was required to re-organize this army ia 
the presence of a superior force of the enemy. He did so. He 
melted into one grand army corps and divisions which had never 
acted together ; he retained his position, never receding, and wait- 
ing until Gen. Sherman led to his aid, by a march almost unex- 
ampled in length and difficulty, a portion of his old army ; and 
then he fought the battle of Chattanooga. It was a grand plan, 
a poetic battle, with all the surroundings and accessories which 
can make a battle memorable in all time. It was a battle simple 
in its greatness and faultless in its execution. It lifted a weight 
from the breast of a nation. But Gen. Grant did not rest here. 
Bragg was driven out of Tennessee, but Burnside was besieged at 
Knoxville. Who does not remember the anxiety felt for his fate? 
Gen. Grant did not rest. Without delay the column that had 
taken Missionary Ridge, and had recently left Memphis, were on 
their way to Knoxville, and in four days had performed much the 
most rapid march of the war, had relieved Burnside, and were 
moving back again. 

" For these victories and movements, almost without a parallel 
in any history, equal to any of Napoleon's, we cannot give Gen. 
Graut a less compliment than by promoting him one degree in the 
scale of rank. If his successes had been doubtful, if they rested 
simply upon one battle, upon one campaign, or upon one victory, 
I should feel very reluctant to pay him this compliment ; but such 
is not the fact. It has been a series of victories. The number of 
prisoners he has captured has been in excess of those captured by all 
the other armies in the field. I believe it is stated that he has cap- 
tured some eighty thousand or ninety thousand prisoners, — more 
than twice as many as have been captured by all our other armies. 
He has captured more flags, taken more guns, fought more battles, 
and won more victories than any other general. I ask senators 
whether they will deny him, on a vote by yeas and nays, this 
honor, stripped of its command, and will say to him that he has 
not yet won the title conferred upon Gen. Scott for his victories 
in Mexico. I will not record such a vote." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 357 

Even Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky, from whom 
no high-keyed approbation would be expected, con- 
descends to say, — 

" I have a high opinioa of the military capacity of Gen. Grant, 
but not that exalted one which some senators have avowed. 
From the time of the capture of the post of Arkansas by his 
army to the present, I think all his military operations have been 
eminently successful, and have been characterized by ability, cour- 
age, and fortitude." 

Mr. Saulsbury of Delaware, when his name was 
called to vote, said, — 

" As unanimous consent was given to the senator from Mary- 
land to make a remark, I presume the Senate will yield the same 
privilege to me. I decline to vote on this question for this simple 
reason, that, in my capacity as a senator, I will have nothing to 
do with president-making." 

Mr. Fessenden of Maine said,— 

" Now, sir, in regard to Gen. Grant himself, for fear that I 
may be misunderstood in any sense, I will say, that, in my judg- 
ment, if I had the selection to-day, I would select him unquestion- 
ably before any one in the country : he would have my vote and 
my voice, because I believe that of all others he has most distin- 
guished himself. Whether it is owing to great ability or to great 
good-fortune, I cannot say. At any rate he has been successful ; 
and in military matters success is the great test of merit, in the 
first instance. And in the next place, from all I have heard of 
him, I believe that he is a man of high moral qualities ; that lie 
not only has physical courage but moral courage ; that, if he had 
been at Antietam, he would have followed the retreating army at 
once and demolished it; that, if he had been at Gettysburg, the 
army of Lee never would have crossed the river : because he would 
not have consulted tliose about liim, and agreed with them contrary 
to his own opinion ; he would have acted, he would have taken the 
responsibility. The gi'eat danger we have been in, the great 



358 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

trouble we have sufFered in this country, in my judgment, is, that a 
<Treat many of our military men have asked themselves the ques- 
tion how misfortune was to affect them, and whether, in case they 
did not succeed, it would not ruin them individually. If they had 
taken their lives, and their reputations as well as their lives, in 
their hands, and said, ' This thing ought to be done, and I will do 
it, though I perish,' we should have accomplished vastly more than 
we have accomplished with men who have stood waiting and in- 
quiring, wondering whether they could succeed, and judging that, 
if they did not succeed, there would be an end of them." 

The amendment was carried, and the bill was 
passed by a vote of thirty-one to six. The House 
disagreed in the Senate amendments, and raised a 
committee of conference, in which the Senate joined. 
The following was the first section, as agreed upon by 
the conferees ; and it finally became the law of the 
land : " That the grade of lieutenant-general be, and 
the same is, hereby revived in the army of the United 
States ; and the president is hereby authorized, when- 
ever he shall deem it expedient, to appoint, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, a lieuten- 
ant-general, to be selected from among those officers 
in the military service of the United States — not below 
the grade of major-general — most distinguished for 
courage, skill, and ability, who, being commissioned 
as lieutenant-general, may be authorized, under the 
direction and during the pleasure of the president, to 
command the armies of the United States." 

The second section of the bill, upon which there 
had been no discussion, and no controversy be- 
tween the houses, provided for the allowances and 
pay of the lieuteuant-general. By its provisions, his 
receipts from all sources amounted to $1,340 per 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 359 

month, or $16,080 per annum. In this sum are 
included all rations, commutations, forage, — every 
thing which constitutes the emoluments of lieutenant- 
general. 

The report of the conference committee was not 
finally agreed to by the House until Feb. 26 ; and the 
bill was signed by Mr. Lincoln on the next day. On 
the 1st of March, the name of Ulysses S. Grant was 
sent into the Senate for the office of lieutenant- 
general; and he was confirmed in executive session 
the following day. 

While this high debate was progressing in the halls 
of Congress, Grant, at Chattanooga, — having dis- 
posed of Longstreet, advanced Thomas to Dalton, and 
rendered his own front comparatively secure, — was 
meditating additional conquests, and had revived the 
plan of attacking Mobile. Auxiliary to this project, 
he had sent Sherman upon the Meridian raid, for the 
purpose of destroying the railroad communication 
between the Gulf States and Virginia. But, while 
employed in organizing new victories in this direction, 
he received on the 3d of March a teleiziram from 
Halleck, to report to. the secretary of war, at the 
capital of the Republic. He had already received 
information from a different source that his name 
was before the Senate for the office of lieutenant- 
general : the order from Halleck convinced him that 
his confirmation was beyond all peradventure. 

What were the emotions of this man, whom we 
found less than three years ago in a leather-store at 
Galena, when first assured of elevation to that exalt- 
ed rank in the army of which but one of his country- 



860 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

men* had been deemed worthy, and that one the 
most illustrious the Western continent had produced, 
— " first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of 
his countrymen " ? I am fortunately able to respond 
to this question. He evinces no exultation, no pride, 
no arrogance, but only genuine humility, conscious 
unfitness for supreme rank, gratitude to Sherman and 
McPherson, true nobility of soul. He receives the 
news of his promotion on the 3d of March. He starts 
for Washington on the morning of the 4th ; but 
between the reception of the information and his 
departure for the capital to wield the baton of lieuten- 
ant-general, I learn from the pages of Gen. Badeau, 
that he writes the following characteristic epistle to 
two of his comrades : it was the first letter doubtless 
which he penned after he had heard of his nomi- 
nation. Gen. Badeau was the messenger who bore 
this communication to the favorite lieutenant : — 

" Dear Sherman, — The bill reviving the grade of 
lieutenant-general in the army has become a law, 
and my name has been sent to the Senate for the 
place. I now receive orders to report to Washington 
immediately m ^erso?i ; which indicates a confirma- 
tion, or a likelihood of confirmation. I start in the 
morning to comply with the order. 

" Whilst I have been eminently successful in this 
war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, 
no one feels more than I how much of this success 
is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious put- 
ting forth of that energy and skill, of those whom it 

1 General Scott was only lieutcnant-'rcncral bv brevet. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 361 

has been my good fortune to have occupying subor- 
dinate positions under me. 

" There are many officers to whom these remarks 
are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportion- 
ate to their ability as soldiers ; but what I want is 
to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the 
men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for 
whatever I have had of success. How far your ad- 
vice and assistance has been of service to me, you 
know. How far your execution of whatever has 
been given you to do entitles you to the reward I 
am receiving, you cannot know as well as I. I feel 
all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it 
the most flattering construction. 

" The word you I use in the plural, intending it for 
McPherson also. I should write to him, and will 
some day; but, starting in the morning, I do not know 
that I will find time just now. 

" Your friend, 
" U. S. Grant, Major-Generair 

The same historian also furnishes us with General 
Sherman's reply: — 

"Dear General, — I have your more than kind 
and characteristic letter of the 4th instant. I will 
send a copy to Gen. McPherson at once. You do 
yourself injustice, and us too much honor, in assign- 
ing to us too large a share of the merits which have 
led to your high advancement. I know you approve 
the friendship I have ever professed to you, and will 
permit me to continue as heretofore to manifest it on 



362 LIFE or GENERAL GRANT. 

all proper occasions. You are now Washington's le- 
gitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost 
dangerous elevation ; but if you can continue, as 
heretofore, to be yourself, — simple, honest, and un- 
pretending, — you will enjoy through life the respect 
and love of friends, and the homage of millions of 
human beings that will award you a large share in 
seciuring to them and their descendants a government 
of law and stability. I repeat, you do Gen. McPher- 
son and myself too much honor. At Belmont you 
manifested your traits, neither of us being near. At 
Donelson also, you illustrated yom' whole charac- 
ter : I was not near, and Gen. McPherson in too sub- 
ordinate a capacity to influence you. 

" Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was 
almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical ele- 
ments that presented themselves at every point; 
but that admitted a ray of light I have followed 
since. I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just 
as the great prototype Washington; as unselfish, 
kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; bat 
the chief characteristic is the simple faith in success 
you have always manifested, which I can liken to 
nothing else than the faith a Christian has in the 
Saviour. This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and 
Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed 3'Our 
best preparations, you go into battle without hesita- 
tion, as at Chattanooga, — no doubts, no reserves ; 
and, I tell you, it was this that made us act with con- 
fidence. I knew, wherever I was, that you thought 
of me ; and, if I got in a tight place, you would help 
me out if alive. My only point of doubt was in 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 363 

your knowledge of grand strategy, and of books of 
science and history ; but I confess your common 
sense seems to have suppHed all these. 

" Now, as to the future. Don't stay in Washing- 
ton, Come West : take to yourself the whole Missis- 
sippi valley. Let us make it dead sure; and, I tell 
you, the Atlantic slopes and Pacific shore will follow 
its destiny as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die 
with the main trunk. We have done much, but 
still much remains. Time, and time's influences, are 
with us. We could almost afford to sit still, and let 
these influences work. Here lies the seat of the 
coming empire ; and from the West, when our task is 
done, we will make short work of Charleston and 
Eichmond and the impoverished coast of the At^ 
lantic. Your sincere friend." 

Grant's route from Chattanoo2;a to Washino;ton 
was a continuous ovation. People besieged the cars 
at every station with vociferous cheers, and in every 
other outward form in which popular enthusiasm 
finds utterance overwhelmed him with adulation and 
homage. I happened to be dining at Willard's, on 
the Sth of March, when the modest and unpretend- 
ing recipient of such tributes from Congress and the 
people as were never 3^et bestowed upon an Ameri- 
can entered the room. It was near six o'clock : the 
tables throughout that long hall were crowded with 
ladies and gentlemen. As soon as Grant was recog- 
nized, his name was announced, and he was formally 
presented to the company by my friend Gen. More- 
head, member of Congress from the Pittsburg dis- 
trict. The guests all rose to their feet, the ladies 



364 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

even proffering this high compliment, and Weaving 
handkerchiefs and napkins. Huzzas, vivas, bravis- 
simas, in all tongues, impotently endeavored to ex- 
press the unutterable gratitude and admiration 
which burdened every bosom. Not content with 
the vocal tribute, some excited individuals mounted 
chairs and tables, in contempt of all convention- 
alities, and manifested their exaltation in jigs and 
break-downs among crockery and viands. Upon re- 
tiring from the dining-hall, I found the general 
^ retreating up the main stairway, abashed before a 
mob of elegantly-dressed ladies, whose admiration 
was too bold and pronounced to be entirely agree- 
able to a recluse, unaccustomed to be smothered in 
roses. 

Cabinet meetings in Mr. Lincoln's day were not 
remarkable for their punctilio. His own free and 
easy manners were a rebuff to all ceremony. He 
was consulted once by an incoming minister, who 
as a former member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet 
had been habituated to its rigid formijlities, respect- 
ing the etiquette to be observed in the cabinet 
meetings of Mr. Lincoln. The president replied, 
" There is no form about it : we all act pretty much 
as we please. Seward smokes, and I tell stories." 
When, therefore. Grant, upon the invitation of Mr. 
Lincoln, presented himself on the morning of the 
Dtli of March in the cabinet chamber of the "White 
House, he found nothing in his reception which need 
awe or discompose a man unfamiliar with State occa- 
sions. The president, Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, Mr. 
Chase, Mr. Welles, Mr. Montgomery Blair, Mr. Bates, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 365 

Gen. Halleck, Mr. Nicolay the executive secretary, 
were in the room ; and to all of them Gen. Grant was 
introduced for the first time, except Mr. Stanton, 
whom he had met at Louisville prior to the Chatta- 
nooga campaign, and Gen. Halleck, with whom he 
was well acquainted. Gen. Grant's own party con- 
sisted of his son, who rode into Jackson in advance 
of our army and was with his father at Champion's 
Hill ; Mr. Washburnc, member of Congress from the 
Galena district ; Gen. Rawlins and Col. Comstock of 
the staff. After the introduction, the president ad- 
vanced with the commission in his hand, and read 
from a manuscript the following address : — 

"General Grant, — The nation's approbation of 
what you have already done, and its reliance on you 
for what remains to do, in the existing great struggle, 
is now presented, with this commission constituting 
you lieutenant-general of the army of the United 
States. With this high honor devolves on you a 
corresponding responsibility. As the country herein 
trusts you, so under God it will sustain you. I 
scarcely need add, that with what I here speak for 
the country goes my own hearty personal concur- 
rence." 

Receiving the commission. Gen. Grant read from 
a manuscript the following reply : — 

"Mr. President, — I accept this commission with 
gratitude for the high honor conferred. With the 
aid of the noble armies who have fought on so many 



306 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAKT. 

battle-fields for our common country, it will be my 
earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expecta- 
tions. I feel the full weight of the responsibility 
now devolving on me. I know, that, if it is properly 
met, it will be due to these armies, and, above all, 
to the favor of that Providence which leads both 
nations and men." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HE INVESTS PETERSBURG. 
[May to July, 1864.] 

I BELIEVE that both the Donelson and Vicksburg 
campaigns abundantly demonstrate, that, as a 
strategist, Grant was superior to any general to 
whom the chief command of our armies had hitherto 
been intrusted. I believe that the battle of Chatta- 
nooga, as an example of grand manoeuvring, deserv- 
edly ranks with the greatest exploits of the greatest 
masters of the art of war. I have quoted largely 
from the debates in Congress upon the lieutenant- 
general bill, for the purpose of exhibiting the esti- 
mate of those who had watched the whole war with 
the most intense anxiety, who were the most inter- 
ested in decisive success, who were in some respects 
most capable of forming a correct judgment of capac- 
ity for superior command. I have exhibited Sher- 
man's opinion of Grant. I have shown that Halleck, 
who as editor of Jomini and author of a work on 
Grand Tactics may be presumed qualified to distin- 
guish between accident and achievement, did not hes- 
itate to compare one of his campaigns with one of 
the most splendid of Napoleon's. " Gen. Grant has 

S67 



368 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

shown more military skill than any general upon onr 
side," was Gen. Scott's guarded indorsement at this 
juncture. The Richmond papers spoke of Grant, as 
"a man of far more energy and ability than any 
who had yet commanded the Army of the Potomac ; " 
but '• that his performances would bear no compari- 
son to those of Gen. Lee." Pollard, who uniformly 
degrades the exploits of Grant, concedes that " his 
name was coupled with success ; " that " no man will 
deny him credit for many good qualities of heart 
and great propriety of behavior ; " that " he had the 
coarse, heavy obstinacy, which is often observed in 
the western backwoodsman, as in a higher range of 
character." 

Grant possessed one qualification for the immense 
task now committed to his hands as indispensable for 
its successful accomplishment as the highest martial 
ability. He was convinced that the armed resistance 
to the laws which confronted us, both in its military 
strength and in its animus, w^as War, gigantic in pro- 
portions, infernal in temper ; and that it was only to 
be dealt with by the uncompromising appliance of 
all belligerent means and expedients. In this re- 
spect he differed decidedly from McClellan, Buell, 
Rosecrans ; and he followed this conviction out to all 
its consequences with more strictness, and devised 
measures more accordant to its severe requirements, 
than either Halleck, Meade, or the president. No 
stronger illustration of the decided spirit, the stern 
modes, of genuine warfare can be found than in 
one sentence which he employs to define a part 
of his policy : " I therefore determined to hammer 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 369 

continuously against the armed force of the enemy 
and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in 
no other way, there should be nothing left to him 
but an equal submission with the loyal section of 
our common country to the Constitution and laws of 
the land." I am not surprised that a measure so 
vigorous as "mere attrition" should be condemned 
by those who were in favor of conducting the war 
in such a mode as " to conciliate the good-will " of 
public enemies, and upon principles of " noble mod- 
eration." For practising the former method, Mr. 
Pollard eulogizes Buell ; and for the latter, disparao-es 
Grant. If warfare was to be conducted to please your 
enemies, both the praise and the condemnation 
would be deserved. Grant unquestionably intended 
to use, unscrupulously, against his armed foe the 
vis ineriicB of superior numbers ; for I have yet to 
learn that war is a business so sure in its aims, so 
certain of triumphs when most wisely managed, that 
a general is justified in sacrificing any advantage he 
may possess, and especially superiority in physical 
force. Grant doubtless designed to carry positions 
by assault if it was practicable, and to resort to the 
more dilatory processes when the speediest were 
bafiled. He did not propose to indulge in a sieo-e 
upon principles of " noble moderation," or in manoeu- 
vres for the purpose of earning from his antagonists 
the commendation of securing results " by intellect 
and genius." He proposed to overcome resistance b}' 
mere physical stress whenever it was possible, even 
if it should evoke from the same critics the imputa- 
tion of having a " low and gross conception of war." 

24 



370 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

If he had acted in this respect according to the 
wishes of Mr. Pollard, he would have entitled himself 
to the condemnation, even in the critic's judgment, 
of being a mere military fop and exquisite, of haz- 
arding success by vain aspirations ; while, from his 
compatriots, he would have deserved the opprobrium 
of sacrificing the national cause to personal vanity. 
The best mode of warfare is that which soonest 
breaks down armed resistance by the authorized 
expedients of war. If this can be accomplished by 
science without slaughter, it is well ; but, if in no 
other way, let it be done by " mere attrition." 

Early in the war, it had arrested Gen. Grant's 
attention, that there was but inefficient concert 
between our widely separated armies, and no hearty 
co-operation in any comprehensive plan of subduing 
the Rebellion. An operation in one part of the vast 
field was without its correlate in another.- Strategic 
plans were without proper auxiliaries. It did not 
escape his notice, as the war progressed, that a vic- 
tory in the Mississippi valley was neutralized by a 
defeat on the Atlantic slope ; and he wisely concluded, 
that a war must be endless, if military ascendency 
should remain in equilibrium between reverse and 
success. It was this inharmonious use of our mili- 
tary preponderance which he characterized by the 
apt metaphor, " The armies of the East and West 
were like a balky team, no two ever pulling together." 

The inherent weakness of our own unsystematized 
military administration was augmented by the adroit- 
ness of the rebels in using their interior lines of com- 
munication to throw re-enforcements impetuously in 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 371 

any direction, and concentrate superior numbers upon 
any vital point which was seriously assailed. Grant 
therefore adopted another fundamental maxim, when 
promoted to chief command : " I determined to use 
the greatest number of troops practicable agamst the 
armed force of the enemj^, preventing him from 
using the same force at different seasons against first 
one and then another of our armies, and the possibili- 
ty of repose for refitting, and producing necessary 
supplies for carrying on resistance." For the first time 
too, in the history of the war, he inaugurated 
expeditions which were correspondents of each other, 
both aimed at the same time at vital points of the 
enemy, and of sufficient magnitude to arrest the en- 
tire rebel force in their respective fronts, — like the 
two represented by the " On to Richmond ! " and the 
"On to Atlanta!" battle-cries. He subserved, more- 
over, one movement b}^ co-operating movements, — 
as illustrated by the relations of Sigel's operations 
in Western Virginia, and Sheridan's in the valley of 
the Shenandoah, to the annihilation of the principal 
army of the Confederacy. 

Important even as these vast strategical plans, were 
some personal qualities of the new commander. I 
have already alluded to the radical methods of war- 
fare which, seated in his convictions, expressed his 
views of the treatment which a rebellion so por- 
tentous should receive ; but he possessed other char- 
acteristics which were equally essential to the per- 
manent triumph of our arms. Physical courage was 
not wanting in many of our generals; but there 
was a deficiency of that moral courage whicli dared 



872 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

to stake reputation, as well as life, upon a movement 
sanctioned by their judgment. This Grant possessed 
in an extraordinary degree. It was this remarkable 
distinction of his which Mr. Fessenden commended 
when he said, "If he had been at Antietam,he would 
have followed at once the retreating army and demol- 
ished it ; if he had been at Gettysburg, the army of 
Lee never would have crossed the river ; because he 
Avould not have consulted with those about him, and 
agreed with them contrary to his own judgment, 
but would have taken the responsibility," Sherman 
delineated the same characteristic when he said to 
Grant, " You have always manifested a simple faith 
in success which I can liken to nothing else than the 
faith which a Christian has in his Saviour." 

In addition to this commanding attribute, three 
years of experience had familiarized him with the 
organization of our army, and the qualifications of its 
officers for responsible positions. He frequently dwells 
upon one requisite for leaders of divisions and army 
corps, which, in his judgment, is even more essential 
than military ability : he speaks of it as the "harmo- 
nious putting forth of energy and skill," as " disinterest- 
edness" in every thing except the faithful performance 
of duty and the success of the cause, as " unselfish 
co-operation " with each other and the chief in the 
execution of all necessary plans. He knew where 
" energy and skill " resided without " the harmonious 
putting it forth ;" he knew where both existed together 
in the same breast ; he knew from whom to expect 
complete co-operation and who would withhold it ; and 
he was, therefore, better qualified than any of his pre- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 37;3 

decessors to select his subordinates, and to place the 
right man in the right place. Wisdom in the choice 
of officers appeared early under the new regime, and 
contributed as efficiently to the final triumph oT our 
arras as any one quality which the lieutenant-gen- 
eral brought to the chief command. 

The same three years had familiarized him also 
with the modes and methods, with the weakness and 
strength, of the enemy. It enabled hiui to read all 
the signs, and interpret all the hieroglyphics, of the 
battle-field. The elan which the rebels exhibit in the 
onset, he contrives to check by corresj)onding dash 
and transports in our charge, or by tenacity and 
pluck in our endurance. He had found, too, that 
the crisis of the battle was when both belliixerents 
were shocked, and that at such a juncture a persever- 
imi; onslauii-ht would determine the fortunes of t' 
day. By a practical application of these two lessons, 
he invigorated the army in such a manner that 
shrewd military critics forthwith prognosticated 
triumph from the unwonted energy of our attacks, 
— the novel vigor of our pursuit. 

In order to understand what Gen, Grant accom- 
plished after he was placed at the head of our armies, 
it is necessary, 'first and foremost, to answer this ques- 
tion, "What progress had been made in subjugating 
the Rebellion at the time the supreme direction of 
affairs was committed to his hands? If I was called 
upon to answer this question to-day, I should imme- 
diately apply to Gen. Grant for the information. No 
man in the land was better capable of answering 
this question at the time ; no man can successfully 



374 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

impugn the correctness of the reply he has given ; 
and no man can presume to present another, when 
his response is upon record. 

When the spring campaign of 1864 opened, " the 
Mississippi River was strongly garrisoned by Federal 
troops, from St. Louis, Mo., to its mouth. The line 
of the Arkansas was also held ; thus giving us armed 
possession of all west of the Mississippi, north of that 
stream. A few points in Southern Louisiana, not 
remote from the river, were held by us, together 
with a small garrison at and near the mouth of the 
Rio Grande. All the balance of the vast territory 
of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas was in the almost 
undisputed possession of the enemy, with an army 
of probably not less than eighty thousand effective 
men, that could have been brought into the field 
had there been sufficient opposition to have brouglit 
them out. The let-alone policy had demoralized this 
force, so that probably but little more than one-half 
of it was ever present in garrison at any one time. 
But the one-half, or forty thousand men, with the 
bands of guerillas scattered through Missouri, Ar- 
kansas, and along the Mississippi River, and the dis- 
loyal character of much of the population, compelled 
the use of a large number of troops to keep navi- 
gation open on the river, and to protect the loyal 
people to the west of it. To the east of the Missis- 
sippi we held substantiallj' with the line of the Ten- 
nessee and Holston Rivers, running eastward to in- 
clude nearly all of the State of Tennessee. South 
of Chattanooga, a small foothold had been obtained 
in Georgia, sufficient to protect East Tennessee from 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 375 

incursions from the enemy's force at Dalton, Ga. 
West Virginia was substantially within our lines. 
Virginia — with the exception of the northern border, 
the Potomac River, a small area about the mouth of 
James River covered by the troops at Norfolk and 
Fort Monroe, and the territory covered by the Army 
of the Potomac lying along the Rapidan — was in the 
possession of the enemy. Along the sea-coast, foot- 
holds had been obtained at Plymouth, Washington, 
and Newberne, in North Carolina ; Beaufort, Folly 
and Morris Islands, Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, and 
Port Royal, in South Carolina ; Fernandina and St. 
Augustine, in Florida. Key West and Pensacola 
were also in our possession, while all the important 
ports were blockaded by the navy. 

" Behind the Union lines there were many bands 
of guerillas, and a large population disloyal to the 
Government, making it necessary to guard every foot 
of road or river used in supplying our armies. In 
the South, a reign of military despotism prevailed, 
which made every man and boy capable of bearing 
arms a soldier ; and those who could not bear arms 
in the field acted as provosts for collecting deserters 
and returning them. This enabled the enemy to 
bring almost his entire strength into the field. 

« The enemy had concentrated the bulk of his forces 
east of the Mississippi into two armies, commanded 
by Gens. R. E. Lee and J. E. Johnston, his ablest and 
best generals. The army commanded by Lee occu- 
pied the south bank of the Rapidan, extending from 
Mine Run westward, strongly intrenched, covering 
and defending Richmond, the rebel capital, against 



376 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

the Army of the Potomac. The army under Johnston 
occupied a strongly intrenched position at Dalton, 
Ga., covering and defending Atlanta, Ga., a place of 
great importance as a railroad centre, against the 
armies under Major-Gen. W. T. Sherman. In addi- 
tion to these armies, he had a large cavalry force 
under Forrest in North-east Mississippi, a consider- 
able force of all arms in the Shenandoah valley, and 
in the western part of A^irginia and extreme eastern 
part of Tennessee, and also confronting our sea-coast 
garrisons, and holding blockaded ports whore we had 
no foothold upon land." ^ 

In this situation of affairs, Grant directs Banks, 
who was now upon the Red-river expedition, which 
had been originated prior to the appointment of a 
lieutenant-general, to expedite those operations, and, 
having secured by fortifications a few points upon 
the Mississippi, between Port Hudson and the mouth, 
to attempt no more conquests in his neighborhood 
except such as were necessary to hold the territory 
already occupied by his troops, but direct his atten- 
tion exclusively to the organization of a force for 
the capture of Mobile. He directs Steele, who is 
holding the Arkansas River, to advance a force to 
the Red, and occupy Shrevesport and other points 
which it was presumed that Banks WH:)uld reduce. He 
commits to Gen. Sherman the military district be- 
tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, which 
Grant himself had formerly administered, and or- 
dered him to defend Tennessee and Kentucky 
against all enemies. 

1 Gen. Grant's Report to Secretary of War of July 22, 18G5. 



■WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 377 

Having hus provided for the security of that part 
of the domain of Rebellion which had already been 
partially reduced, he develops an offensive cam- 
paign, which consists of two grand correlated move- 
ments, addressing the two principal armies of the 
Confederacy and the cities which they respectively 
cover. He instructs Gen. Sherman to move against 
Johnston's army for the purpose of destroying it, to 
penetrate as far as possible into the enemy's countr}^, 
and to inflict damages to the extent of his power on 
the war resources of the Rebellion. If the enemy in 
his front show signs of re-enforcing Lee, he directs 
him to follow the re-enforcements up, and prevent 
the concentration of the two armies. He orders 
Gen. Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac, 
to make the army of Lee his objective point, to 
follow it vip wherever it moves, and to defeat any 
attempt on its part to unite with Johnston. 

It is a great mistake to presume that the sole aim 
of either of these movements was to capture the 
strongholds which were protected by the armies of 
Lee and Johnston. Complete success in such enter- 
prises would have merely changed the theatre, with- 
out materially reducing the strength, of war. The 
occupation either of Richmond or Atlanta, without 
breaking the two armies, would vanquish the shadow 
instead of the substance of treason, — win the eclat 
of conquest without diminishing the martial strength 
and grandeur of the Confederacy. When we reflect 
that the subjugation of both these armies was an 
indispensable prerequisite to the termination of hos- 
tilities, we see at once the absurdity of those cavils 



378 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

which suggest modes of reaching the capital with- 
out encountering the real dominion, which was posted 
in the Wilderness. The subjection of that army was 
more essential to peace than the reduction of its cita- 
del ; and every shock it endured, every rebel soldier 
in it killed or wounded, every capture which debili- 
tated it, every diminution of its prestige and arro- 
gance, were blows both at the heart and at the cas- 
tle of treason. " Why not move ther army in trans- 
ports to City Point, and there secure a poiiit d'ap- 
pui ? " has been frequently asked. It is a sufficient 
answer to say, that we should have then encoun- 
tered the unbroken army of Lee behind regular for- 
tifications, devised with all the ingenuity of science, 
instead of behind field-works in the Wilderness. 
Grant would have then been compelled to abandon 
his own capital to the mercy of his antagonist, or to 
have divided and dispersed his army ; which was 
McClellan's apology for the failure of the Peninsular 
campaign. Whatever route was taken, Lee's army 
must be met and defeated ; whatever device or 
stratagem was employed for surprising Richmond 
while that army was intact would have been a mere 
sop to Cerberus, — a sensation conquest for the 
North, while the South was yet militant, and might 
yet be triumphant in the field. Hollow and Bun- 
combe victories were unsatisfactory to the earnest- 
ness, and disgusting to the sincerity, of Grant. He 
craved no triumphs which would turn to ashes in his 
grasp. 

The part of this campaign of which Lee's army, 
and, in a contingency, Richmond, were objective 



WHAT DTD HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 379 

points contemplated the auxiliary co-operation of the 
Army of the James under Butler, and the Army of 
West Viro;inia under Sisrel. The simultaneous ad- 
vance of these with the Army of the Potomac was 
pre-arranged. Grant issued the following instructions 
to Butler : " The necessity of covering Washington 
with the Array of the Potomac, and of covering your 
department with your army, makes it impossible to 
unite these forces at the beginning of any move. I 
propose, therefore, what comes nearest this of any 
thing that seems practicable : The Army of the Poto- 
mac will act from its present base, Lee's army being 
the objective point. You will collect all the forces 
from your command that can be spared from garrison 
duty, to operate on the south side of James River. 
Richmond being your objective point. 

" When you are notified to move, take City Point 
with as much force as possible. Fortify, or rather 
intrench, at once, and concentrate all your troops for 
the field there as rapidly as you can. From City 
Point, directions cannot be given at this time for 
your further movements. 

" The fact that has been already stated — that 
is, that Richmond is to be your objective point, and 
that there is to be co-operation between your force 
and the Army of the Potomac — must be your guide. 
This indicates the necessity of your holding close to 
the south bank of the James River as you advance. 
Then, should the enemy be forced into his intrench- 
ments in Richmond, the Army of the Potomac would 
follow, and, by means of transports, the two armies 
would become a unit. 



380 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

" All the minor details of your advance are left 
entirely to your direction. If, however, you think it 
practicable to use your cavalry south of you, so as to 
cut the railroad about Hicks's Ford about the time 
of the general advance, it would be of immense ad- 
vantao-e. " 

He also adds in his report, "Before giving Gen. 
Butler his instructions, I visited him at Fort Monroe, 
and in conversation pointed out the apparent impor- 
tance of getting possession of Petersburg, and destroy- 
ing railroad communication as far south as possible. 
Believing, however, in the practicability of capturing 
Richmond unless it was re-enforced, I made that the 
objective point of his operations. As the Army of 
the Potomac was to move simultaneously with him, 
Lee could not detach from his army with safety, and 
the enemy did not have troops elsewhere tg bring to 
the defence of the city in time to meet a rapid move- 
ment from the north of James River." 

Grant transferred to Butler's command Gen. Wil- 
liam F. Smith, who had earned deserved distinc- 
tion as chief engineer of the Army of the Cumber- 
land. He had been recently promoted to the rank 
of major-general, for gallant and meritorious service 
in the Chattanooga campaign. The lieutenant-gen- 
eral's personal knowledge of the ability of this otHcer 
warranted the opinion, that no better selection of 
chief subordinate to Gen. Butler could be made, nor 
a more reliable coadjutor found to share with him 
the responsible duties committed to the Army of the 
James. Gen. Gilmore, who was unsurpassed as an 
artillerist, was also ordered with ten thousand men to 
re-enforce Gen. Butler. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 8S1 

Grant directs Sigel to advance ten thousand men 
to Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah valley, for the 
purpose of blockading this oft-frequented avenue to 
Washington ; and to despatch seven thousand men 
down the Tennessee Railroad, to sever this important 
connection with Richmond ; and to destroy the salt- 
works at Saltville, which were the main resource of 
the Confederate armies for this necessary commodity. 

Grant re-organized the Army of the Potomac, and 
purged and reformed its roster of officers. It now 
consisted of the Second, Fifth, and Sixth Corps of 
infantry, commanded respectively by Major-Gens. 
Hancock, Warren, and Sedgwick. The Ninth Corps, 
under Burnside, was speedily united with it. " I 
tried as far as possible," Grant said, " to leave Gen. 
Meade in independent command of the Army of the 
Potomac. My instructions for that army were all 
through him, and were general in their nature, leav- 
ing all the details and the execution to him." Gen. 
Sheridan was placed at the head of its cavalry. It 
was furnished with a reserve park of artillery, under 
the direction of Brig.-Gen. Hunt, but under the 
immediate command of Col. H. S. Benton. An 
engineer brigade and a pontoon-train were also at- 
tached to it, under Major Duane. 

The Army of the Potomac is now encamped on the 
north bank of the Rapidan. As Grant looks south- 
ward over the river, his eye first encounters the tract 
called the Wilderness, which spreads for more than 
twelve miles from the banks of the Rapidan to with- 
in cannon range of Spottsylvania Court-house. It is a 
vast unbroken hedge, seamed by deep ravines, barri- 



382 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

caded by sharp ridges^ — a natural defence raised for 
the obstruction of armies. The primitive forests had 
been consumed for fuel by German miners, who, in 
the last century, worked its iron-ore beds ; more re- 
cently it has been scoured for gold. It was now 
densely covered by a second growth of scraggy pines, 
hazel, and scrub-oaks, constituting a wild and tangled 
thicket, more forbidding to army combinations than 
a Mexican chaparral. There are no clearings or 
patches of cultivation for the deploy of troops. There 
are roads from the fords of the Rapidan, which inter- 
sect a plank road from Fredericksburg to Orange 
Court-house, and the turnpike between the same 
county-seats, that passes the Old Wilderness Tavern. 
Most of its pathways, however, are cart-tracks and 
cow-paths through the woods, the direction of which 
is known only to the inhabitants of the region, and 
to the enemy, who survey and study them with 
special reference to pending operations. It is a coun- 
try where familiarity with the course and debouch of 
these by-paths gives an advantage, both for offence 
and defence, which no numerical preponderance can 
counterbalance ; where the grand tactics of the most 
consummate masters would be of no avail, and every 
attempt at manoeuvre upon our part involves us in 
inextricable labyrinths, or inveigles us into lairs 
prepared for our slaughter. I am not surprised that 
Mr. Pollard and his sympathizers at the North resent 
Grant's reliance upon the vis inerticn of numbers, 
instead of " military genius " and a policy dictated 
by "noble moderation," while endeavoring to pene- 
trate this wilderness. 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAU ? 383 



Confronting this natural barrier, but looking to- 
wards the north, lies the army of Lee, consisting of 
the corps of Hill, Longstreet, Ewell, with Stuart's 
cavalry, posted in a strong position, well protected in 
front by elaborate field-works, with its left flank 
covered by the Rapidan and the mountains near 
Orange Court-house, and its right flank guarded by 
an intrenched line extending from Morton's Ford to 
Mine Run. 

The 4th of May was the day assigned for the 
concerted movement of the three armies. Butler and 
Sigel were instructed to move ; Sherman, moreover, 
was directed to advance. Grant in person orders the 
Army of the Potomac to pass the Rapidan, and turn 
at Mine Run the extreme right of Lee. Before 
dawn, Warren's army corps, followed by Sedgwick, 
crosses the Germania Ford, and, with cavalry in 
advance and spread upon both flanks, succeeds in 
reaching the Old Wilderness Tavern, on the turn- 
pike to Fredericksburg, without encountering the 
enemy. Hancock, with the artillery reserve, crosses 
at Ely's Ford, and, with heavy squadrons in front and 
upon both wings, encamps for the night at Chan- 
cellorsville on the Orange and Fredericksburg Turn- 
pike, and within supporting distance of Warren and 
Sedgwick. The immense supply-train of four thou- 
sand wagons follows Hancock. By four o'clock in 
the afternoon of the 4th, the entire army is estab- 
lished in its position beyond the river. " I regarded 
it as a great success," said Grant ; " and it removed 
from my mind the most serious apprehension I had 
entertained, that of crossing the river in the face of 



384 LIFE OP GENERAL GEAXT. 

an .ictive, large, well-appointed, and ably commanded 
army." 

It is now the foremost wish of his heart to pass 
without molestation the interveining belt of jungle 
between his advance and Spottsylvania Court-house. 
It would have been in accordance with " noble moder- 
ation" for Lee to have permitted him to do it; but I 
have never found the rebels practising this policy 
(though preaching it earnestly to Grant), or sacrificing 
any manifest advantage of warfare, for the purpose of 
establishing a claim upon our favorable consideration. 
From the position occupied by our army, there were 
two roads practicable for its advance, — the Orange 
and Fredericksburg Plank-road, and the turnpike be- 
tween the same points. They run nearly parallel at 
the Wilderness, separated by a distance of two miles : 
both are convenient routes for hurrying up Hancock 
in support, if an emergency demands it. With the in- 
tention of flanking well to the right the intrenchments 
of Mine Run, Warren and Sedgwick are ordered to 
march by the Orange Plank-road to Parker's Tavern, 
five miles from their camping-ground ; Hancock is in- 
structed to bend southward on his own left; while 
Sheridan's cavalry are to scour the country, and feel 
for the enemy in a south-westerly direction. 

While Warren and Sedgwick are on their march, 
Gen. Meade perceives two army corps of the enemy 
advancing upon the turnpike. There is no time to 
deliberate, no opportunity to dechne an engagement. 
Fight or flee are the sole alternatives : the evasion of 
battle is to recross the Rapidan. Warren is immedi- 
ately ordered to halt his column, and to concentrate 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 385 

on the turnpike, and attack the enemy; Sedgwick 
is directed to plunge into the woods, and, by such 
cow-paths as he can find, form on Warren's right; 
Hancock, who is at Todd's Tavern on his southward 
march, is commanded to face to the westward, and 
swing in on Warren's left ; Getty's division of Sedg- 
wick's corps is sent to the intersection of the Brock 
and Orange Plank-road, to hold that position at all 
hazards until Hancock comes up. 

At noon Warren is formed across the turnpike, with 
Wadsworth's division as his left wino; in air, awaitins: 
the support of Hancock ; Crawford's division is in the 
centre ; Griffin's division is the right wing, with its 
right flank also exposed ; while Sedgwick is groping his 
way by wood-hidden by-paths to support and pro- 
long the line. The brunt of the first day's battle is 
endured by Warren : his army corps advances against 
Hill and Ewell, strongly posted upon a ridge with 
dense undergrowth, which hides their front, and 
screens sharpshooters upon the flanks of both. The 
Fifth Corps, with two pieces of artillery upon the pike, 
advanced in such order as was practicable in this jun- 
gle, and assailed the Confederates with as much hero- 
ism as if their line was visible to the e3^e, and could 
be reached by our fire. The fusillades which broke 
from the forestrcovered hill, and from masked infan- 
try upon both flanks, was dreadful to endure, but was 
received without breaking the combination, until a 
point was attained at last where it was able to sweep 
the ridge with its musketry, and deliver a fire which 
forced back in confusion a brigade of Ewell's corps, 

2S 



386 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

commanded by Geu. Jones, who was slain in an impo- 
tent attempt to rally his broken battalions. While 
victoriously advancing, Griffin's uncovered right flank 
was suddenly struck by a gallant charge of the enemy, 
of such sheer impetus that it repelled him, with the 
loss of his two pieces of artillery. Our left wing w\as 
more staggered by the musketr}^ from the hill than 
our right, and was easily driven without fracturing 
the line of Hill. Wadsworth was flung back with 
such violence that his junction with Crawford was 
severed, and the enemy dashed into the fissure, cap- 
turing prisoners from the flank which was unprotect- 
ed. Getty, upon his arrival at the intersection of the 
Brock with the Orange Plank-road, found our cavalry 
in retreat before heav}^ columns of infantry. He im- 
mediately deployed into line, and, by repeated volleys, 
arrested the onslaught in this direction. When Han- 
cock came up at two o'clock, he formed with Getty 
upon the left of Wadsworth. At this precise period, 
Hill was attempting to mass his troops to overwhelm 
Wadsworth's disordered wing. Hancock met the 
shock of Hill's impetuous attack, and was successfully 
forcing him back to the ridge, which served as a nat- 
ural embankment for the foe, when Mott's division of 
the Second Corps gave way. In vainly attempting to 
heal the chasm. Gen. Alexander Hays was instantly 
slain. No better commentary upon the inextricable 
entanglements of the country is needed than the fact 
that Sedgwick, who is no laggard when his comrades 
are beset, is struggling all day through the woods and 
deceptive cart-roads to form a junction with Warren's 
right. It was not until six o'clock that he brought 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 387 

the gallant and determined Sixth into line.^ Thus 
ended the first day in the Wilderness, with the per- 
sistent endeavor of Lee to arrest our advance and 
drive us beyond the Eapidan signally defeated : we, 
upon the other hand, were foiled in our attempt to 
dislodge him from the position which he had assumed 
in the morning. 

It was something to escape defeat, when assaihng 
a wily and determined adversary in ambuscade, with 
outlets and inlets unknown to us, but which for 
months he had been skilfully contriving for our sur- 
prise and destruction. If there is " refinement " in 
such a mode of warfare, commend me to " mere attri- 
tion." It seems to me more in consonance, with bar- 
barian than civilized methods, and undeserving the 
eulogy of Southern historians. Numbers were as fu- 
tile as against Indians in an impenetrable forest ; not 
a thousand of the Confederate army were seen durino- 
the day. Secure intrenchments against disasters 
encouraged desperate risks; while nothing more em- 
boldened sudden springs than the possession of such 
advantages for decoy, and the manifest bewilderment 
of our troops, entangled in a maze, and delivered 
bUndfolded to the smiter. These odds combined 
inspirited the rebels to deeds and pranks of darin*'- 

1 My guiding authority in the campaign of the Wilderness is a manuscript 
copy of Gen. Meade's report, dated " Headquarters Armv of tlie Totomac, Nov. 
1, 1804," addressed to Lieut.-Col. T. S. Bowers, assis'taut adjutant-general, 
and covering the operations of that army from the- 4th of !May to the 28th of 
October. I sliali admit no movement of our army into this part of my narra- 
tive which is not sanctioned by his report. In regard to the enemy's move- 
ments, I shall collate all that we have of Lee's despatches, and also Pollard's 
account of battles in the " Lost Cause," with the manuscript report of Jleade, 
and Grant's final comprehensive report. 



888 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

such as may be presumed phantoms would exhibit in 
a charge upon visible men, — such safe audacity as the 
Lydian Gyges displayed when rendered invisible by 
his magical ring. 

While such environments animated with super- 
natural courage the assailed, no language can exagge- 
rate the appalling terrors of such encounters to the 
assailant. It was not a battle against palpable lines, 
and columns which could be measured and weighed 
by the eye, but against unseen lairs crowded with 
real and chimerical peril, against spectres screened 
from observation until their presence is declared by 
overwhelming volleys in the bosoms of our groping 
columns. It is a fight of the sightless against the 
seeimr, — of an Oriental kino; asrainst orame inveig-led 
into a battue pre-arranged for its slaughter, where the 
escape of one victim is a humiliation to the hunter. 
If there is any expedient by which such a monstrous 
hedge can be purged of impalpable foes but by the 
abrasion of man against man, I wish self-suffivdent 
critics would condescend to disclose it. 

It was developed on the second day ^ of the battle, 
that, in addition to the controlling advantages I have 
enumerated, the possession of interior lines rendered 
the forces of the enemy suprisingly mobile, so that 
Lee could mass upon his right, centre, and left with 
magical celerity. The high qualities which distin- 
guished him, and the impetuosity and daring of his 
cohorts, were never more signally displayed than 
upon this memorable occasion. It was met by a 
tenacity of temper in Grant, and a pluck in his 

1 Friday, May 6, 1864. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 389 

troops, equally marvellous. The enemy held the 
position of yesterday upon the ridge, screened from 
our eyes, and moving and massing his columns in 
concealment. Hill was upon his right; Longstreet, 
who arrived early in the forenoon, was in his centre ; 
and Ewell upon his left. 

The Ninth Corps of our army, by a march of 
unexampled rapidity, had reached the field ; and we 
confronted the enemy, with Sedgwick on our right, 
Warren, Burnside, Hancock, on the left. From dawn 
until dark, it was upon Lee's part a succession of 
furious and impassioned leaps, — first upon Sedgwick, 
then upon Hancock, next upon Burnside, and finally 
upon Sedgwick. Upon Grant's part, it was inflexible 
resistance, and counter-charges by Hancock and 
Burnside of most determined spirit and audacity. 
Hancock hurled Hill from his position, carried the 
whole Confederate front, and drove for a mile its bro- 
ken columns, only to be tossed back by the combined 
corps of Hill and Longstreet. While struggling at 
this crisis to redeem the day from disaster, replenish- 
iiiGC with his own dauntless heroism his \vaverino: 
division, and in the thickest of the fire aninmting his 
shrinking soldiery, Wadsworth surrendered to an 
imperilled country a noble life, and inscribed upon 
her martyr-roll a spotless name. For one wild mo- 
ment or two, it seemed as if the field was lost. 
Burnside was hurried to the support of Hancock; 
but the irresistible mass of Hill and Longstreet swept 
Stevenson's brigade from Burnside's line, and through 
the gap the exultant rebels dashed with a frenzy 
which threatened universal discomfiture. But, fortu- 



390 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEANT. 

nately, Hancock had rallied his brigade, and in his 
turn struck the rebel columns upon their exposed flank, 
and again precipitated them upon their forest fastness. 
Longstreet was rallying some select brigades for 
a second assault. " As he galloped forward, Gen. 
Jenkins spurred to his side to grasp his hand, with 
the pleasure of an old friend ; for Longstreet had 
but ne^vly arrived from several months' campaign 
in Eastern Tennessee. But hardly had the mutual 
congratulations passed each other's lips, when a 
deadly volley from Mahone's brigade, concealed in 
bushes along the road, mistaking Longstreet, Jen- 
kins, and the rest for a party of the flying foe, 
was poured into them at short range. Jenkins fell 
instantly from his horse a lifeless corpse, while Long- 
street received a ball that entered his throat, and 
passed out through his right shoulder. Bleeding 
profusely, he Avas helped from his horse, so prostrated 
that fears w^ere entertained for his immediate death. 
Placed on a litter, the wounded general was removed 
from the field ; but, feeble though he was from the 
loss of blood, he did not fail to lift his hat from time 
to time a& he passed down the column, in acknowl- 
edgment of its cheers of applause and sympathy." ^ 
The confusion caused in the ranks of the foe by this 
disaster was seized by Burnside to charge their line 
with such determined and successful gallantry that 
Gen. Lee was obliged to place himself at the head of 
a Texan brigade to repel the assault, and was only 
prevented from doing it by the positive remon- 
strance of the rank and file. In Sedirwick's front 

O 

1 Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 515. 



WHAT ■ DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 391 

the battle had surged and resurged. Ewell had 
defeated every attempt to roll up his division, and 
Sedgwick had defied every efibrt to break his line. 
Darkness had descended upon the scene before Lee 
expended his expiring strength by darting at vari- 
ous points of our front, to mask Gordon's final charge 
upon Sedgwick. Leaping unexpectedly from the 
woods, the rebel general separated Truman Sey- 
mour's brigade from our extreme right, and hurried 
it into captivity, without tearing Sedgwick from his 
rooted hold upon the earth. Night fell upon this 
disputed field with the positions of the morning 
unchanged. Each party could say at the close of the 
day, " We have successfully repulsed every charge of 
the enemy." The carnage was terrible upon both 
sides ; but the sacrifice of blood determined one 
important question of the conflict. Who call pound 
the longest ? was settled upon this sanguinary day. 
It was proved that superiority of numbers was more 
enduring than superiority of position. The losses of 
Lee prevented him from prolonging the contest in 
the field, while Grant was able to endure his casu- 
alties without relinquishing the struggle. Never in 
the history of wars did contending causes rest more 
decidedly upon the predominating characteristics of 
the generals-in-chief A dexterity in handling troops 
inferior to Lee's could not have redeemed his army 
from irretrievable disaster; persistency less than 
Grant's would have abandoned the Wilderness in 
despair. It was our good fortune that the personal 
endowments of our chief were best adapted to the 
crisis ; for, while no skill in manoeuvring could have 



392 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

essentially varied the result, any vacillation of pur- 
pose would have been the surrender of the cam- 
paign. When genius was powerless for success, 
defeat was arrested by will. Nor were the distin- 
guishing merits of the two armies less conspicuously 
exhibited. None but Northern soldiers could have 
withstood those impetuous leaps of the fiery South- 
rons from those terror-inspiring jungles; while North- 
ern resolution, in a juncture so momentous, could 
only have been resisted by the delirium of Southern 
fury. Early the next morning,^ the irrepressible 
determination of Grant directed the renewal of the 
desperate conflict. Hancock was immediately or- 
dered to attack by the Orange Plank-road ; but he 
found nothing but pickets on the battle-field of yes- 
terday, and skirmishers only on the hotly-contested 
ridge. Lee had retired to the intrenchments from 
which he had emerged to assail Grant's advance, 
when he first developed his operations in the Wil- 
derness. "From this it was evident to my mind," 
says Grant, " that the two days' fighting had satisfied 
him of his inability further to maintain the contest 
in the open field, notwithstanding his advantage of 
position ; and that he would wait an attack behind 
his works. I therefore determined to push on, and 
put my whole force between him and Richmond ; 
and orders were at once issued for a movement by 
his right flank." The march was commenced at 
niglit,^ but the necessity of moving our immense 
train by daylight disclosed Grant's purpose to the 
enemy. Pushing forward on two parallel roads, the 

' Saturday, May 7, 1864. 2 Saturday, May 7. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? 393 

two armies commenced a race towards Spottsylvania 
Court-house ; but familiarity with the country, and 
the command of the nearest paths, gave Lee the ad- 
vantage in the struggle. Early in the morning/ 
Warren, who was in advance, found Longstreet's 
corps posted on the Brock Road, near its intersec- 
tion with the Po, prepared to dispute the passage of 
the river. For the first time, artillery was used in 
the Wilderness campaign, and the guns with which 
the enemy scoured the approaches to the banks were 
answered by counterblasts from our field-batteries. 
Warren immediately attacks with Robinson's divis- 
ion, and crowds the enemy back, and secures a 
favorable position for the overtasked Fifth near the 
Block House. Sedgwick and Hancock, as they come 
up, engage in the fray. A brigade of the Second 
Corps routs the enemy, who contest the crossing of 
Corbin's Bridge. Wilson dashes into Spottsylvania 
Court-house at the head of his squadrons ; but, as the 
infantry is arrested in its course, he is obliged to sur- 
render his barren conquest. It now, for the first 
time, becomes apparent that every river, bridge-head, 
ridge, ravine, on the path to the rebel capital is block- 
aded with continuous earth-works. The heart of the 
most intrepid soldier sinks within him as he measures 
such a length of way, beset with such frightful perils. 
No voice at the time proposed any better path : the 
wisdom of sagacious critics was husbanded until the 
irrevocable step was taken, and the same disloyal 
tongues which were then praying for the defeat of 

1 Sunday, May 8. 



394 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

our army are now wailing over the dreadful sacrifices 
of the journey. 

On Monday/ Grant finds himself relieved from the 
unbroken forest of the Wilderness, but in a rolling 
coiintry admirably adapted for defence, with groves, 
patches of timber, canons affording admirable covers, 
strong positions for determined foes, — one of those 
regions of the earth which a Leonidas defends against 
the world. He can now estimate with more precision 
than before the expenses of the march ; but his cour- 
age, according to the testimony of his military family, 
rises with every new impediment which discloses 
itself Providence graciously gave us an inflexible 
will for insuperable obstacles. Name a predecessor 
in command who would not have recrossed the Rap- 
idan five days ago. 

Pursuit is renewed at dawn. Sedo-wick and Warren 
are both directed to feel for the enemy, and develop 
the position of Hill and Ewell, who are known to be 
in our front. While Sedgwick, with his habitual care, 
is aiding his artillerymen in establishing a battery, 
the gunners are annoyed by the whistling of sharp- 
shooters' bullets from some trees in front. The old 
soldier attempts to encourage his inexperienced com- 
rades by assuring them that the marksmen are too 
remote to inflict a wound ; but, as the soldiers continue 
to dodge, he erects his own stalwart form in front of 
the men, and, facing the woods where the sharp- 
shooters are concealed, says, " Pshaw, boys ! they can't 
hit an elephant at that distance." But he hardly 
essays the hazardous experiment before a Minie ball 

1 May 9. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 395 

strikes him in the face. A wreath of foam encircles 
his lips, followed by a smile over his placid features. 
He clasps his arms over his breast, as he fliUs into 
the arms of his aide ; and it was hardly known when 
he ceased to breathe. The army could lose no nobler 
soldier : a grateful beneficiary of the nation, reared 
at its military school, he repaid his education by the 
service, and finally by the sacrifice, of his life. He was 
a jpreux chevaUer of the olden time, brave as a Cid, 
gentle and loving as a woman ; in battle, more than 
indifferent, " for he was insensible," to danger, " daring 
to lead where any dared to follow ; " in peace, the joy 
and solace of brothers and sisters, nephews and 
nieces, who fiiirly rioted in the affection and cheer- 
fulness of their unmarried relative. He knew nought 
in war but a soldier's duty. To his comrades in com- 
mand he was the soul of honor, to the rank and file 
the most faithful and devoted of leaders : you could 
always find his plume in the fore-front of battle. 
Victory perched where his banners waved. In the 
corps which he led with so much glorj^, in the Army 
of the Potomac, of which he was one of the oldest 
officers, he had made only friends ; and he was fol- 
lowed to the grave by the tears of the soldiers, the 
lamentation of his colleagues, the sorrow of a nation.^ 

' John Sedgwick was bom in Cornwall, Litchfield County, Conn., in 1817. 
He entered the Military Academy at West Point in 1833, and graduated in 
1837. He was a practical, as distinguished from a theoretical, soldier. During 
the Mexican War, he participated in the action at Contrcras, which routed 
Valencia in his fortified camp, and on the same day at Cliurubusco. Whdo 
Grant was storming the iete de pont, Sedgwick was engaged in that determined 
attack upon the right of the Convent of San Pablo. He stormed Chapultepec 
with Quitman. In the war against the Rebellion, he first attracted the notice of 
his countrymen in the Peninsular campaign, and was brevettcd brigadier-general 



396 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

I shall not attempt to follow in detail the embroih 
ments of Tuesday and Wednesday.^ There is much in 
them of exciting adventure, but these pages are al- 
ready overburdened with similar incidents. I find, as 
I proceed, that I must select for full description those 
battles only which illustrate some new trait in Grant's 
character, or point some moral of his life. The 
operations on these days ~ were an uninterrupted 



in the regular army for gallantry at Fair Oaks, where he is reputed to have saved 
the day. He led a division at the battle of Antietam, remaining on the field 
until disabled by two wounds. On his recovery, he was appointed major- 
general of volunteers. At Chancellorsville, his part of the prognimme was 
nobly performed. He captured Fredericksburg, but was compelled to withdraw 
on account of the disaster of Hooker. After a march of twenty-three miles, 
he arrived at Gettysburg in time to participate in the victory. The command 
of the Army of the Potomac, before and after Chancellorsville, was twice 
offered him, but twice refused. 

1 May 10 and 11. 

2 Monday,. May 9. — On the 9th of May, the Fifth and Sixth Corps continued 
pressing the enemy, developing his position, and seeking points to assault. 
During these operations the distinguished and beloved Major-Gen. Sedgwick, 
commanding the Sixth Corps, fell, and Brig. -Gen. Morris, of t!ic same corps, 
was wounded. Early in the day two divisions of the Ninth Corps had been moved 
to the Fredericksburg Road, and, finding the enemy on it, had driven him 
handsomely across the Ny, losing, on the 10th, the distinguished Brig.-Gen. 
Stevenson. In the evening the Second Corps moved up from Todd's Tavern, 
taking position on the right of the Fifth Corps, and sending Mott's division to 
the left of the Sixth Corps. 

On this day, the 9th of May, Sheridan, with the cavalry corps, moved 
southerly, with orders to engage the enemy's cavalry, and, after cutting the Fred- 
ericksburg and Central Railroads, to threaten Richmond, and eventually com- 
municate with, and draw supplies from, the forces on the James River. 

On May 10th, the enemy was pressed along his wliole front. Early in the 
morning Giblion's and Barton's divisions, Second Corps, were crossed over the 
Ny, with a view of turning the enemy's left flank. He was found, however, so 
strongly posted and guarded by the Ny, that these divisions were withdrawn. 
Barlow, being in rear, was vigorously attacked by Heth's division, whom he 
handsomely repulsed, but, in retiring, was compelled to abandon a piece of artil- 
lery that became jammed in some trees in a narrow road. On the withdrawal of 
Gibbon, he, together with Birney, in conjunction with the Fifth Corps, assaulted 
unsaccessfuUy the enemy's line. During this operation Brig.-Gen. Rice, of 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 397 

succession of brave and vigorous assaults upon the 
fortified lines of Lee, triumphant in some particu- 
lar instances, but indecisive in their general result. 
Col. Upton, with defiant audacity, leads a column 
with arms-a-port over a loopholed breastwork, and 
grabs nine hundred and fifty men with twelve guns, 
of the same division which stampeded Seymour one 
Friday evening. It was two days of assault and 
counter-assault, — battles, in fact, larger than Sara- 
toga or Yorktown, followed by a grand contest of the 
embattled hosts on Wednesday afternoon, sublime 
in magnitude and grandeur. I find nothing in this 
general engagement which illustrates any trait of 
Grant's character but his persistency and determina- 
tion ; and, if that is not already established, no cumu- 
lative proof can fortify the claim. Nor can I disguise 
the fact, that, like the rest of the Wilderness cam- 
paign, it was a saturnalia where slaughter and death 
rioted in the blood of the brave, where hosts of noble 
patriots surpassed even Roman fortitude in squander- 
ing life for the sovereignty of the nation. The names 
of Rice and Stevenson follow Hays, Wadsworth, 
Sedgwick, on the scroll of honor ; while thousands and 
thousands of unchronicled braves embraced the grim 
destroyer with heroism even more exalted, becailse 
their self-immolation secured no everlastino; remem- 
brance. No patriot can peruse these mortuary rec- 

the Fifth Corps, ever distinguished for personal gallantry, fell, mortally wound- 
ed. Later in the evening, Upton's brigade successfully carried the enemy's line 
in his front, capturing guns and prisoners ; but, not being supported by Motton 
his left, Upton was compelled to retire after dark, abandoning the guns. Mott 
succeeded in forming conjunction with the Ninth Corps, who had moved up to 
his left from the Fredericksburg Road. — Meade's Manuscript Report. 



398 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

ords without anathemas deep and long at that arro- 
gant oligarchy which embroiled contented millions 
in civil war for the sole purpose of perpetuating its 
tenure upon bodies and souls enslaved, — without 
reconsecration of himself to the sacred cause of free 
humanity, — without vowing in his heart of hearts, 
that the blood lavished on Wilderness battle-fields 
shall ripen into laws and institutions, which shall 
guarantee to all children of a common Father all the 
essential equalities which were their birthright. Glo- 
rious martyrs ! Touch our hearts with a spark from 
that flame which burned in your own ! inspire us with 
your unfaltering devotion to freedom ! teach us nobly 
to suffer, bravely to die ! ^ 

Grant was pursuing a march to Richmond by a 
series of flanking movements, for the purpose, if 
possible, of avoiding battle. I find no fault with his 
skilful antagonist for attempting to foil this manoeu- 
vre ; but to accuse Grant of courting bloodshed comes 
with bad grace from the admirers of Lee, who con- 
stantly threw himself before the Federal general, 
presenting to him the alternatives to move on his 
works, or abandon the campaign. The true cause of 



'■ Our losses from May 5 to May 12 were 269 officers, 3,019 enlisted men, 
killed ; 1,017 officers, 18,261 enlisted men, wounded ; 177 officers, 6,6G7 enlisted 
men, missinj*. During the same period we captured 7,9*5 of the enemy. I 
have found no reliable estimate of the enemy's killed and wounded during the 
same period. The statement of oifl- own killed and wounded I transcribe from 
Gen. Meade's manuscri])t report. 

I was in Washington when the wounded were sent in from the Wilderness 
battle-fields included witiiin this period ; and the number of slightly wounded 
men seen in the cars, in the streets, and about the Capitol, attracted universal 
notice. Bush-fighting and the Indian modes of warfiire were the reasons of the 
disproportionate amount of "slightly wounded." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL ^E ? 399 

their grievance is, that Grant seized the bolder horn 
of the dilemma, and exposed the lives of his soldiers 
in the same manner as Lee had lavished the lives of 
his, to establish his reputation as an invincible chief- 
tain, and withstand for three years the Army of the 
Potomac. I am not surprised that Confederate critics 
are nettled when they fmd that there is now a com- 
mander of this army who is the match of their own 
pagod in running risks for victory. I answer their de- 
nunciation of Grant in this respect by saying that he 
was no more prodigal of life than Lee ; and, although 
this is a mere tu quoque response, it is all which the 
imputation from such a source deserves. If the earth- 
works could have been carried without the loss of a 
man. Grant would have gladly adopted the expedi- 
ent; if the Army of Virginia would have laid down 
their arms and submitted to the laws, he would have 
joyfully accepted the surrender : but he was no 
quailing temporizer, willing that treason should re- 
main triumphant. If it was to be subdued by blood, 
he was ready, though reluctant, to expend the pre- 
cise amount of that priceless material which was 
needed to reduce the martial streni>:th and arrogant 
temper of armed resistance into subjection to the 
authority of the national government. 

Lee still persists in refusing to be flanked, still 
throws intrenchments in front of every flanking 
movement, still compels Grant to assail him or re- 
treat. Here he remains in spite of the blood of 
Tuesday. " On Wednesday,"^ says Gen. Meade, ''• find- 
ing the enemy's left so well guarded, arrangements 

1 May 11. 



400 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

were made to attack his centre at a salient point." 
Hancock moves that night in front of the position 
to be assailed. Wright, now in command of the 
Sixth Corps, Warren, Burnside, are all directed to 
co-operate in the important movement. Between 
Hancock and the threatened ang;le is an intervenino* 
space of twelve hundred yards, rugged, broken, em- 
barrassed with forests and underbrush. The mornins: 
is lowering and rainy ; and the fog drops in thick vol- 
umes among the trees, clothed with the first foliago 
of spring. It is now silent as the grave : the first feath- 
ered w^arbler has not yet opened his innocent throat. 
The devoted band of Hancock stands in two lines, 
awaiting the signal. The divisions of Barlow and 
Birney constitute the first ; the second is composed of 
Gibbon and Mott. There they stand, with lips com- 
pressed, restless eyes straining in vain to penetrate the 
dense obscurity before them, muscles all strained, 
nerves all girded up, and in their hearts those unutter- 
able emotions which throng it in the presence of immi- 
nent danger. The signal is given ; the noiseless lines, 
with poised bayonets, cleave the encumbered interval ; 
you can hear the cheers as the exultant soldiers beat 
against the salient, and finally surge over it upon the 
surprised defenders. Edward Johnson is captured 
with most of his division, as well as Stuart with two 
brigades. Stuart and Hancock had been comrades 
in the Federal army ; and the latter was moved by 
a generous impulse to recognize his captive, and 
extend to him a hand, cordially saying, " How are 
you, Stuart ? " The prisoner replied with great stcite- 
liness, " I am Gen. Stuart, of the Confederate army, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 401 

and under the circumstances decline to take your 
hand." — "And under other circumstances, general, 
was the other's becoming response, " I should have 
declined to offer it.'" The rebel intrenchments 
spring to battle, and Hancock has but little time for 
compliments. He would have perceived, if the dark- 
ness would have permitted, that he had severed the 
rebel centre, and nearly beaten up the quarters of 
Gen. Lee. Hancock forthwith re-formed his division, 
and advanced vigorously upon the enemy's second 
line, when he is met by massed columns gathered in 
from every side for a terrific struggle; for success 
in his new adventure would have been the exter- 
mination of the Army of Virginia. The ironsided 
veterans of a hundred fights struggle with des- 
peration, not only for their waning renown, but for 
life and safety. Warren advances to the support, 
but Hancock is hurled back into the captured 
work. Wright and Burnside, inspired by Hancock's 
example, vehemently contend to convert the advan- 
tage into a crowning victory. The commingled roar 
of cannonade and musketry reminds old soldiers of 
Gettysburg, when the reserved artillery of Meade 
and the whole rebel park join their thunder. 
Hancock turns the captured cannon on the rear- 
ward lines, and for a season breaks and scatters them. 
Lee calls in all his outposts : from woods, ravines, 
swamps, his sturdy followers collect to redeem the 
fortunes of the day. Five separate and determined 
assaults, during this bloodiest of Thursdays, Lee made 
to recover the captured salient; for five times his 

1 Greeley's American Conflict,, vol. 11. p.. 572. 
26 



402 LIFE OF GENENAL GRANT. 

bleeding columns are hurled from its face, shockingly 
torn and mangled. Bayonets are frequently inter- 
locked : at periods the fight is hand to hand. Rival 
colors are divided but by yards upon opposite sides 
of the breastwork : men fight with their claws, like 
ferocious tigers. Golgotha, Aceldama, are no names 
to express the gory and mutilated victims which 
upon this day alone Lee offered up to glory and re- 
nown ; for it afterwards appeared that Hancock's hard- 
won prize was in no way essential to the security of 
the rebel lines. A spectator of this savage butchery 
says, that '' in the angle of death the dead and 
wounded rebels lie literally in piles, — men in the 
agonies of death groaning beneath the dead bodies 
of their comrades. On an area of a few acres, in 
the rear of their position, lie not less than a thou- 
sand rebel corpses ; many literally torn to shreds by 
hundreds of balls, and several with bayonet thrusts 
through and through their bodies, — pierced on the 
very margin of the parapet which they were deter- 
mined to retake, or perish in the attempt. The one 
exclamation of every man who looks on the spectacle 
is, ' God forbid that I should ever gaze upon such a 
sight again ! '" ^ The humane Mr. Pollard, who is so 

1 Mr. Swinton, who can hardly be suspected of disparaging Lee, in his work 
of marked ability upon the " Army of the Potomac," says, " Of all the struggles 
of the war, this was perhaps the fiercest and most deadly. Frequently, through- 
out the conflict, so close was the contest that rival standards were planted on 
opposite sides of the breastworks. The enemy's most savage sallies were 
directed to retake the famous salient, which was now become an angle of death, 
and presented a spectacle ghastly and tciTible. On the Confederate side of the 
works lay many corpses of those who' had been bayoneted by Hancock's men 
when they first leaped the intrenehments. To these were constantly added 
fhc bravest of those who, in the assaults to recapture the position, fell at the 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 403 

grievously shocked at Grant's waste of life, and is 
constantly shedding crocodile tears over our wounded 
soldiery, concedes that Lee's five charges were " of 
sublime fury and terrible carnage;" that "the dead 
and wounded lay piled over each other, the latter 
often underneath the former ; " and yet he has not a 
word of rebuke to administer to the chivalrous pala- 
din who was thus slaying hecatombs of his choicest 
troops for a point of honor, while, in the next para- 
graph, he berates Grant as the " Moloch of the 
North." ' 

War is a mere accumulation of curses, and not the 
least horrible is the one which constrains the most 
humane leader to estimate the sacrifice of men he 
must make by the frugality or waste, in this respect, 
of his antagonist. And no one but an idiot can ex- 
pect that a battle can be won or a campaign carried 
against Kobert E. Lee, without a liberality in some 
degree commensurate with his own lavish expenditure 



margin of the works, till the ground was literally covered with piles of dead, 
and the woods in front of the salient were one hideous Golgotha." 

He adds in a note, " I am aware that the language above used may resemble 
exaggeration ; but I speak of that which I personally saw. In the vicious 
phraseology commonly employed by those who undertake to describe military 
operations, and especially by those who never witnessed a battle-field, ' piles 
of dead ' figure much more frequently than they exist in reality. The phrase 
is here no figure of s])ecch, as can be attested by thousands who witnessed the 
ghastly scene." (" Campaigns of the Army of tlic Potomac," p. 454.) The 
same author asserts in another place, that " to be superior to your enemy at llic 
actual point of contact is a cardinal maxim of war." Lee signally neglected 
this maxim in his attempt to retake the salient. 

1 Our losses from May 12 to May 21 were 144 officers, 2,032 enlisted men, 
killed; 259 oflBcers, 7,697 enlisted men, wounded; 31 officers, 248 enlisted 
men, missing. A large proportion of the wounded were but sligJttli/ wounded : 
they went home on furlough, and afterwards returned to their respective rcgi- 
ments. 



404 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

of the lives of his own soldiers. Unless a general 
delivers himself bound into his hands, he must repel 
his violence with violence as great, and the loss must 
depend upon the length and desperation of his attack. 
It would be wiser for the historian of "The Lost 
Cause " either to suppress entirely his reproaches, or 
distribute them with some slight pretence to impar- 
tiality : it would be wisest of all for him to reserve 
his censure until the day when preference is given to 
those modes of warfare which please your enemy, 
or when battles are fought with squirt-guns. The 
slaughter of our troops, which he professes to lament, 
lies at the door of those who rebelled against the 
Government, and not at his who was compelled to 
fight for its suppression according to the methods 
which his adversary rendered imperative. It is mere 
talk for children, to claim that this can be done with- 
out a multitude of killed and wounded. No man 
knows better than the critic, that " noble moderation " 
never would have conquered the Rebellion ; and the 
reason why he stands aghast at Grant's " attrition " is, 
because his warfare was as implacable and thorough- 
ffoinoj as that which the rebel chieftains initiated. 
Lee prolonged the contest till midnight, but failed to 
tear Hancock's hard-won prize from his grasp. No 
better proof that Lee was merely fighting for reputa- 
tion, and that his lines were completely secure with- 
out the reconquest of the salient, is needed than 
Grant's forced admission that Hancock's " advantage 
was not decisive ; " and Meade's no less reluctant con- 
cession that " the enemy, failing to recover his lost 
ground, retired into an inner and shorter line," where 
his position remained as invulnerable as ever. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 405 

I cannot dwell upon the marvellous adventures of 
both armies between the 12th and 20th of May. I 
cannot pause to describe how our new base of sup- 
plies is established at Acquia Creek ; how Gen. Sheri- 
dan with his cavalry squadron sweeps with the dev- 
astation of a cyclone up to the very gates of Rich- 
mond ; how Gen. Robert 0. Tyler, with his veteran 
artillerists acting as infantry, tears our baggage-trains 
from the famished hordes of Ewell ; how the colored 
division of Ferrero add insult to ignominy by chas- 
tising the hungry rebel leader on his flight ; how 
skirmishing follows the hours, and the crack of rifles 
tells the minutes. I cannot enumerate the success- 
ful assaults, checks, sharp repulses, brilliant affliirs, on 
the Fredericksburg Road, the Ny, at Bowling Green, 
at Milford Bridge, which fairly consecrate as holy acres 
the river-banks, highways, forests, everglades, through- 
out the broad expanse of Spottsylvania and Caroline. 
Neither can I dwell upon the skill with which Grant 
planned that perilous flanking movement to the North 
Anna ; nor upon the ability and careful husbandry of 
troops with which Meade executed it : how it was more 
of a race than a strategical competition ; how at the 
outset the enemy struck an impotent blow at Wright 
as rear-guard ; how Lee hugged the highlands, meas- 
uring our progress with an evil eye, prepared to leap 
on the flanks of columns on the march ; how he 
selected direct roads ; how Grant is obliged to deflect 
far to the eastward by inferior and meandering 
pathways. 

Ravage and desolation had as yet spared the 
'lelightful vales of the Old Dominion, through which 



406 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

the two armies are now advancing. The beneficent 
ministrations of Nature to Man are luisuspencled : 
the dew, the gentle showier, the genial rays, unbind 
the glebe ; delicate spires of wheat pierce the yield- 
ing mould ; the clover blooms as for happy harvest- 
homes; while over the upland and on the slope the 
golden leaves of the corn begin to rustle in the 
breeze, that Industry may again drive the wagon, 
and Plenty shout again with the reapers, as if pillage 
was unknown, and the curse on Cain revoked. The 
diversified landscape still smiles in the sunshine, 
still lowers beneath the passing cloud ; the birds war- 
ble joyously in the grove ; the cicadas chirp, as usual, 
their flited monotone; the streams gurgle in the 
path ; the bruised flower lifts its gentle head under 
the hoofs of War to dispense its balmiest fragrance 
in the air, which fierce and implacable legions are 
breathing only for mutual havoc and slaughter. 
The blue smoke of homesteads curls up at morn and 
at eventide; the wondrous eyes of innocent child- 
hood peer with unnatural awe upon the marshalled 
hosts; mothers hide the curly heads of babes in pal- 
pitating bosoms; unterrified watch-dogs start up 
rampant, and bark to arrest the mighty inroad ; the 
fowls run fluttering as if eagles were hovering 
over them ; swine leap from the mire, and rush for 
their styes with sonorous grunts of terror. Sabbath 
days drop from heaven on this crime-stained earth, 
but bring no serenity or repose to war-tossed armies. 
Neither can I detail how Grant's army found the 
enemy again intrenched on the North Anna, and 
prepared to dispute the passage; how Griflin with- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 407 

stood the fiery assault of the massed foe, and, by the 
skill of his dispositions and the steadiness of his 
troops, rescued the Fifth Corps from disaster irre- 
trievable ; how we established a secure position on 
its southern shore; how Grant paused, pondered, 
and studied the invulnerable works of his foe ; how 
he found that an enormous disparity of force and an 
immense sacrifice of life were required to wrest them 
from his grasp ; how, under the cover of an attack. 
Grant adroitly recrossed the North Anna, crept 
stealthily down its northern bank, and gave a wide 
berth to Lee, that our extended columns on the 
march might not be exposed to a disastrous onset ; 
how Grant again wheeled to the southward, and, on 
Friday the 27th of May, took possession of Hanover 
Town, within sixteen miles of Piichmond, and estab- 
lished a secure base of supplies at the historic White 
House, on the Pamunkey. 

The battles of the Wilderness could not have been 
evaded without the surrender of the campaign. The 
battles of Spottsylvania were, perhaps, necessary 
to damage the personnel and break the morale of 
the haughty enemy, and to assert our equality with 
him in aggressive determination. But, if these con- 
siderations were not controlling, I should have pre- 
ferred that the flanking movements which, even 
with a shifting base, Grant executed with such mas- 
terly skill should have been attempted before, rather 
than after, the direct issue was tried. The maxim, 
"Never attack a position in front when you. can 
obtain it by turning it," ^ may be overruled by the 

1 Imputed to Turcnne by Napoleon, but doubtless his own. 



408 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

higher authority of Napoleon's example in the Rus- 
sian campaign ; but it should also be borne in mind 
that those operations were not specimens of his best 
style, and that the judgment of the military world 
sanctioned his precept with more emphasis than his 
practice. 

Flanking movements are sometimes attended with 
greater risks than trial by battle. No more manifest 
advantage is craved by a wily chief, familiar with a 
country, than the opportunity of striking the exposed 
Hank of an enemy upon the march. The repetition 
of such manoeuvres is always hazardous ; for it em- 
boldens a defensive army to address its entire skill 
and resources to the defeat of these tactics. It must 
not be known that they are the sole resource of the 
invader. Grant has shown a manifest inclination to 
shun an engagement on the North Anna,^ and to 
avoid sacrificing his men, if any practical alternative 
presents itself except the abandonment of the cam- 
paign. The time has now arrived when the sterner 
procedures of war are imperiously required : for a 
flanking movement to the left will carry Grant away 
from Richmond ; and the same movement to the 
right Avill take him over the James, without authority 
from Washington. When he reaches the Pamunkey, 
he finds that Lee's corresponding retrograde was by 
a much shorter line than our detour. A reconnois- 
sance upon the day after our arrival discloses the 
enemy in another intrenched position, facing to the 
north-eastward, covering both railroads and both 

1 Our losses from May 21 to 31, inchuling the march from Spotf^ylvania, 
and the battles at the North Anna, amounted in ihc aggregate to l,G07. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 409 

turnpikes to Richmond, and rendering the crossing 
of the Chickahominy, in order to interjDOse between 
Lee and the Confederate capital, a critical move- 
ment, which even Grant's temerity cannot essay in 
the presence of such a foe. Richmond is now the 
objective point which Grant must pursue, in connec- 
tion with the destruction of Lee's army ; for Butler 
has failed to capture the capital, and the discom- 
fiture of Sigel in the valley of the Shenandoah en- 
ables Breckenridge to re-enforce Lee. The objects 
of the campaign, and the necessities of the case, im- 
peratively demand a disregard of the enemy's mani- 
fest advantage of position, and a re-appeal to radical 
modes of warfare. 

Sheridan is promptly directed to seize Cold Harbor, 
which is the focus of three important roads conver- 
ging towards Richmond. He had executed the order 
as was his wont, and was holding the position, although 
the nearness of the rebel lines pressed him sevv^rely, 
and he had called for support, which meant some- 
thing!; when it came from Sheridan ; and he had been 
ordered to " hold his position at all hazards," which 
meant something, also, when that order was issued to 
him. Grant calls up Gen. William F. Smith from Ber- 
muda Hundred, where his force is now merely super- 
numerary, and determines to assail again the enemy's 
fortified lines. Both Warren and Smith are sent to 
the relief of Sheridan, and dispossess the enemy of his 
exterior works. The Federal commanders close in 
upon Cold Harbor with all their corps. With Smith's 
(Eighteenth) for the centre, Warren (Fifth) draws in 
upon Smith's right, and Burnside (Ninth) upon the 



410 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

right of Warren ; Wright (Fifth) swings in on Smith's 
left, and Hancock (Second) upon the left of Wright. 
Hancock, Warren, and Burnside fought their way to 
these positions by a series of battles. 

The brunt of Cold Harbor rested upon the Eigh- 
teenth, Fifth, and Second Corps, converted into a 
storming party upon the intrenched positions of the 
enemy. Burnside during the action attacked the ene- 
my's left, and would have damaged it if the engage- 
ment had been prolonged. The object of the battle was 
to open a path to Richmond, and its tactics were simple. 
I presume that no general orders were given after the 
corps were brought into line but, "Advance, and carry 
the enemy's works." There were no features in it 
which distinguish it from other terrible enterprises of 
this description. Bravery which contemns death, and 
mutilation more horrible than death, was required 
and exhibited by the actors in this frightful immola- 
tion upon the nation's altar. It was commenced at 
four o'clock on the morning of June 3. The enemy's 
works were behind a marshy front, drenched by a re- 
cent thunder-storm. The morning was lowery, with 
occasional showers. The battle lasted for half an hour ; 
but in this figment of time were condensed the ordi- 
nar}^ horrors of decades, and more gory and ghastly 
minutes can scarcely be found in the records of war. 
With dauntless audacity, the charging line advances ; 
and moral sublimity is personified in its defiant and 
desperate precipitation on death and carnage. The 
roar of the instruments of slaughter is scarcely heard 
in the heart's convulsed throbbings for the actors. 
The first of the doubled lines of Barlow's division of 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 411 

the Second Corps sprang with such supernal might 
upon the enemy's intrenchraents, in a sunken road, 
that they crushed the garrison hy mere weight, and 
captured three guns and hundreds of prisoners. The 
second line of the same division, though charging 
with unfaltering valor, were so surpassed in energy 
by the first, that their support was unavailing until 
Hill massed sufficiently to dislodge the victorious as- 
sailants ; ^ but, with all his accumulated strength, he 
succeeded only in hurling Barlow a few yards, where 
he covered his front so speedily that he defied the 
rebels to dislodo-e him. 

Gibbon, who stormed upon the right of Barlow, was 
constrained to flounder through the mire, but still 
mounted the hostile works, and planted a flag upon 
the death-swept parapets. Eight hundred of Gibbon's 
men were thrown back but fifteen yards, where they 
seized the protection of a mound, and, with a heroism 
for which human annals must be sharply searched to 
find a parallel, held it during the livelong day, re- 
pelling frequently attacks from all the force which 
Lee could hurl against them, slaughtering the most 
reckless stormers he could rally from his army, until 
the noble legion were finally relieved by a sap run 
out from our most advanced trench to the Thermopy- 
lae which had withstood the entire rebel host. De- 
vens's and Eickett's divisions of Wright's corps 
found themselves confronted by a pine-grove, with 
a ploughed field two thousand yards wide for an 

1 I confess my inabilit}' to see why tlie Federal commanders did not mass troops 
to sustain Barlow, even at the sacrifice of an " assault alonir the whole line." 
The expediency of these modes of attack, without having a sufficient force to 
overwhelm the enemy at the point assailed, may be reasonably questioned. 



412 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

approach, over which they charged in the face of a 
feu cVeufe7\ carrying the rifle-pits, but without piercing 
the enemy's intreuchments. Smith's storming party, 
staggered at the outset, were ralUed by their inflexible 
commander, and fought with stubbornness, but with 
no decisive advantage. 

We lost upon this day thousands of brave men, 
but secured Cold Harbor, and maintained and 
strengthened our position. Our heroic army, by 
these desperate assaults, which cost us so much blood, 
so thoroughly reformed Southern opinion of Northern 
valor, that, after the crossing of the Rapidan, the 
Army of Virginia never met the Army of the Potomac 
in the open field. The arrogance of those legions 
which had for three years domineered the Atlantic 
basin was completely tamed by this campaign ; and, 
if they still hugged the illusion of invincibility, they 
contented themselves with asserting it behind breast- 
works and fortifications. In moral stamina and in 
the 2^restlge of victory lies, after all, the strength and 
prowess of armies ; and, when these are destroyed, 
the mechanical organization may remain, but the 
soul has fled. When the principal army of the 
Confederacy was forced to decline any gantlet 
tendered by the Army of the Potomac, the triumph 
of the Union was a foregone conclusion. The re- 
siduum of valor, which, ensconced in Petersburg and 
Richmond, prolonged the contest for months, was in- 
suflicicnt to vindicate the claims of the rival Govern- 
ment to be a military power, or to assert its dominion 
over a single State. I believe that Gen. Grant correctly 
described the state of Lee's army after these battles 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 413 

when he said in his report, " During three long years, 
the Armies of the Potomac and Northern Virginia 
had been confronting each other. In that time they 
had fought more desperate battles than it probably 
ever before fell to the lot of two armies to fight, 
without materially changing the vantage-ground of 
either. The Southern press and people, with more 
shrewdness than was displayed in the North, findino- 
that they had failed to capture Washington and 
march on to New York, as thty had boasted they would 
do, assumed that they only defended their capital 
and Southern territory. Hence, Antietam, Gettys- 
burg, and all the other battles that had been fought, 
were by them set down as failures on our part, and 
victories for them. Their army believed this. It 
produced a morale which could only be overcome 
by desperate and continuous hard fighting. The 
battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna, 
and Cold Harbor, bloody and terrible as they were 
on our side, were even more damaging to the enemy, 
and so crippled him as to make him wary ever after of 
taking the ofiensive." ^ Here is a palpable weakness 

^ Our losses from June 1 to June 10 were 144 officers, 1,561 enlisted men, 
killed; 421 officers, 8,621 enlisted men, wounded; 51 ofliccrs, 2,325 enlisted 
men, missing, 

Mr. Swinton estimates the losses of the enemy up to the battle of Cold 
Harbor at twenty thousand. As he has communicated freely with Confederate 
officers, his estimate is entitled to great weight. Pollard asserts, that, at the 
commencement of the campaign, " Lee had but forty thousand muskets." If 
the estimates of both of these high authorities on rebel matters are correct, Lee 
had lost half of his available force. 

Our losses in this campaign were unquestionably heavier than those of tho 
enemy, but his losses greater in proportion to the number engaged : the heaviest 
item in our list of casualties is the wounded. And any one who was at Wash- 
ington at the time knows that the city was crowded with slight!;/ wounded men, 
who afterwards returned to the field. 



414 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

compared with former strength ; here is the shrinking 
defensive instead of the bold a":o:ressive. Who cares 
whether it resulted from decayed moral or phj'sical 
vigor ? Discussions upon the morale of armies al- 
ways run into metaphysical subtleties. The dispu- 
tants cannot agree in their definition of the word, or 
in the precise condition of things which it compre- 
hends ; but we all know that it requires a higher 
order of this quality to fight uncovered than behind 
intrenchments. When, therefore, we find that an army, 
which in previous years has faced every odds upon 
every field, and roamed with claims to supremacy 
from Munson's Hill to Carlisle, now declines an en- 
gagement except behind fortifications so impregnable 
to assault, that Grant is assailed by military critics 
for the attempt to carry them, we must conclude 
that either its morale is seriously impaired, or, what 
is equally to the purpose, that its personnel is effect- 
ually debilitated. If Grant secured either of these 
results, he achieved no contemptible triumph. The 
stubborn fact to which he adverts is, in my judgment, 
more conclusive upon the question of the condition 
of Lee's army at this time than all fine-spun theories, 
or all testimony, however emphatic, in favor of its 
morale, which may be gathered from Confederate 
officers ; for, while we could not reasonably expect 
that they would admit a damaging statement, morale 
is so uncertain in its meanincj and so variable a 
quality, that they would be justified in denying 
the want of it on particular occasions, while the 
j^eneral tone of their troops might have been one 
of demoralization. An army which is habitually dis- 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAR ? 415 

piritecl, discontented, and gloomy may rise to a high 
degree of elation on the spur of temporary success, 
and yet be in no condition for " deeds of bold em- 
prise." That element of morale which consists in 
confidence in a commander never was wantino- in 
the Army of Virginia ; but I think it must be admit- 
ted that the elements of it which constitute con- 
fidence in victory were manifestly deficient after the 
battles of the Wilderness. 

The shock, which had either dispirited or enfeebled 
the rebel army, now enabled Grant to adopt and 
execute the audacious expedient of transferring his 
vast army to the south side of the broad current 
of the James, in the face of an adroit adversary. 
Why the accomplished general of Virginia, with his 
admitted ability, did not arrest the most perilous 
adventure in which his foe could engage, and the 
most damaging in its results to the existence of the 
Confederate Government, is for those admirers to 
explain who claim that the Army of Virginia was 
not demoralized by the remorseless battles of the 
Wilderness. It does not do, in this era of intelligent 
criticism, to assert " that the south side of the river 
was the precise place where he wanted Grant ; " for 
this answer is belied by the efforts he made to dis- 
lodge him when the position was secured, disclaimed 
by the approved principles of the science of which 
Lee professed to be a master, condemned by the 
calamitous results of the change of base to that 
cause of which he was the foremost champion. It 
does not do to say, that " Lee was deceived j " for 
this is to confess that a " military genius," with the 



416 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

whole population acting as his spies, is outwitted 
in strategy by a mere "hammerer," who "never 
manoeuvres," Mr. Pollard says, " Lee did not attack 
Grant on his movement to the James. He was 
probably unable to do so." What ! unable to do 
so with an army which, according to the testi- 
mon}^ of Confederate officers, was " never in better 
spirits and condition than after the battle of Cold 
Harbor." The apology " that he had Petersburg 
and Richmond to protect, and a force to send to 
Lynchburg," will not relieve Leo from the imputa- 
tion either of incapacity or feebleness ; for how could 
the capital, as well as all its communications and 
outposts, have been more effectually protected than by 
hurling " invincible veterans " upon a " mob of Nortli- 
ern banditti," marshalled by " Thor the Barbarian," 
when crossing the devouring waters of the James 
on pontoons two thousand feet long, and marching 
with exposed flank to sever the most important 
communications of the Army of Virginia, — to smite 
the outposts Avhich were the key to its capital. No 
answer can be made which is not either an iiapeach- 
ment of Lee's ability as a commander, or a confes- 
sion of the weakness of his army. I claim that 
Gen. Grant gave the true explanation when he said, 
" After the battles of the Wilderness, it was evident 
that the enemy deemed it of the first importance to 
run no risks with the army he then had. He acted 
purely on the defensive behind breastworks, or 
feebly on the offensive immediately in front of them, 
and where in case of repulse he could easily re- 
tire behind them." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 417 

The movement across the James is certainly for- 
tunate in one respect, — it is one out of the few of 
Grant's manoeuvres which commands the unanimous 
approbation of miUtary experts. I find no author, 
entitled to any consideration, who assails it. It is 
the sole operation of the lieutenant-general, during 
the entire campaign, which extorts commendation 
from the Avriter to whom the officers of the Army 
of the Potomac committed their data and material 
for the compilation of its history. I therefore select 
the on]^ authority at my command which I could 
consult for an adverse opinion ; because I believe, 
that, with Grant's adversaries, the approval of Mr. 
Swinton ought to be conclusive upon the military 
soundness of any measure of Grant's which he con- 
sents to praise. " The determination of Gen. Grant 
to transfer the army, by a flank march, to the south 
side of the James River, involved considerations of 
a wholly different order from those concerned in the 
repeated turning movements which he had made to 
dislodge Lee from the intrenched positions held by 
him. These were simply manoeuvres of grand tactics, 
delicate indeed in their nature, but they did not 
carry the army away from its line of operations, nor 
from the defensive line as regards Washino-ton which 
it all the time covered. The resolution to cross the 
James necessitated the total abandonment of that 
system of action which aimed, while operating against 
the enemy offensively, to directly defend the national 
capital. Moreover, the operation was in iteslf one of 

great delicacy, — a change of base being pronounced 
2r 



418 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAKT. 

by the foremost master of Wcar ' the ablest manoeuvre 
taught by miUtary art.' ^ Gen. Grant manifested as 
much moral firmness in adopting a line of action 
which, adverse though it was to the wishes of his 
Government, he felt to be prescribed by the highest 
military considerations as he showed ability in execut- 
ing this difficult operation. The measure itself was 
not only entirely conformable to the true principles 
of war, but its execution reflects high credit on the 
commander, and merits the closest study." ^ 



' Napoleon : Memoirat vol. iii. p. 203. 

2 Gen. Grant, in his report, assigns the reasons which influenced him to make 
the movements, in the language which follows : " From the proximity of the 
enemy to his defences around Richmond, it was impossible by any flank move- 
ment to interpose between him and the city. I was still in a condition to 
either move by his left flank and invest llichmond from the north side, or 
continue my move by his right flank to the south side of the James. While the 
former might have been better as a covering for Washington, yet a full survey 
of all the ground satisfied me that it would be impracticable to hold a line 
north and east of Richmond that would protect the Fredericksburg Railroad, — 
a long, vulnerable line, which would exhaust much of our strength to guard, 
and that would have to be protected to supply the army, and would leave open 
to the enemy all his lines of communication on the south side of the James. 
My idea, from the start, had been to beat Lee's army north of Richmond, if 
possible. Then, after destroying his lines of communication north of the 
James River, to transfer the army to the south side and besiege Lee in Rich- 
mond, or follow him south if he should retreat. After the battle of the 
Wilderness, it was evident that the enemy deemed it of the first importance to 
run no risks with the army he then had. He acted purely on the defensive 
behind breastworks, or feebly on the oiFensive immediately in front of them, and 
where, in case of repulse, he could easily retire behind them. Without a greater 
sacrifice of life than I was willing to make, all could not be accomplished that I 
had designed north of Richmond. I therefore determined to continue to hold 
substantially the ground we then occupied, taking advantage of any fiivorablc 
circumstances that might present themselves, until the cavalry could be sent to 
Charlottesville and Gordonsville to effectually break up the railroad connection 
between Richmond and the Shenandoah valley and Lynchburg, and, when the 
cavalry got well off, to move the army to the south side of the James River, by 
the enemy's right flank, where I felt I could cut ofi" all his sources of supply 
except by the canal." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 419 

I think, then, unless there is a flaw in my logic, I 
may claim for Grant a degree of proficiency in the 
highest department of his profession, which enables 
him "to execute with ability," according to the admis- 
sion of the most censorious of his critics, what has 
been pronounced by the foremost master of war 
" the ablest manoeuvre taught by military art." 

The change of base was accomplished by station- 
ing Warren upon the New-Market Road, to threaten 
an entrance into Richmond a outrance, and sending 
Wilson's squadron to drive the enemy's cavalry over 
White-Oak Swamp. Under cover of Warren's dem- 
onstration, the remaining corps of the army marched 
to Charles City. The Second Corps commenced cross- 
ing on the morning of the 14th, by ferry-boats, at Wil- 
cox's Landing. During the same forenoon, Gen. 
Weitzel, chief engineer of Virginia and North Caroli- 
na, had prepared at Douthard's, a short distance below 
Hancock's point of passage, the site and abutments 
of a bridge. At five o'clock on the afternoon of 
the 15th, Gen. Benham undertook the remarkable 
achievement in engineering, of laying a pontoon, over 
two thousand feet in length, from Douthard's, on the 
north, to Windmill Point, on the south bank of a river 
navigable by the largest ships. The bridge rested on 
boats anchored in thirteen fathoms of water, and was 
completed by midnight of the same day. The Sixth 
Ninth, and Fifth Corps commenced crossing at about 
six o'clock in the morning of the 16th. For the 
next forty hours, a continuous stream of artillery, 
infantry, cavalry, wagons, and three thousand head 



420 LIFE OF GEXEEAL GRANT. 

of beef cattle, passed the pontoon, without accident 
to man or beast.^ 

The 15th of June was a notable day in the cam- 
paign. Upon the use which was made of a few hours 
towards its close depended the question whether 
Petersburg should fall by assault or siege. During 

1 The following is Gen. Benham's account of this notable enteqirisc : 
" On the 13th and 14th, in accordance with an order of Gen. Grant, I had 
sent up the pontoon rafts from Fort Monroe, under the above-named volun- 
teer troops, not feeling then at liberty, from the previous orders of Gen. Meade, 
to leave my other property and troops to go up myself. But about eleven, a.m., 
on the IStli, I received the order, and was under way in half an hour, arriving 
at the position selected at about five, r.m. There I found Gen. Tilcade and Gen. 
Weitzel; which latter had prepared the approaches and had the abutment com- 
menced. I was at once directly charged with the laying of the bridge, by Gen. 
Meade, with the regulars to assist the volunteers ; and he smiled, when I told 
him, ' I should not sleep till the bridge was laid.' 

" I distributed my men at once, the regulars at the east end, the volunteers 
at the west end, and a company of volunteers to jjrcpare a part or raft by my 
plan of simultaneous bays. 

" At about half-past ten, p.m., I received a despatch from Gen. Meade asking 
the progress of the bridge, to which I was able to reply at once, that the last 
boat was in position, and the raft of three boats built, ready to close the gap 
he had ordered left for the present; and that it was ready for completion in fif- 
teen minutes at any time he ordered. 

" The gap was closed, but the bridge was not required or used till si.x, A.M., 
the next morning ; when the regulars were relieved, and the bridge continued 
under my care, with the volunteers, who carefully watched and repaired it 
every hour, or oftencr, for the seventy-five or eighty hours it was down. 

" For the next forty hours after six, a.m., of the 16th, a continuous stream 
of wagons passed over the bridge (from four thousand to six thousand wagons), 
— some said fifty miles of wagons, — and nearly all the artillery of this army, 
and by far the larger portion of the infontry, and all its cavalry present, and 
even to its head of three thousand or more of beef cattle (the most injurious 
of all), without an accident to man or beast. My officers and men were 
scarcely allowed any sleep during this time, nor myself as much even as four 
hours in the eighty hours preceding the taking up of the bridge ; for it was 
in anxiety, not to say trembling, that I saw the destinies of this whole army 
of our coimtry even committed to this single frail boat-bridge, with steamers 
and other vessels drifting against it, and with much of its planking previously 
worn almost entirely through by careless use upon the Eappahannock ; and I 
dared not stop the living stream of men and matter to sheathe or protect it." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 421 

this afternoon it was only defended by a feeble band 
of disabled and superannuated soldiers, and it is ad- 
mitted that a prompt and vigorous attack would 
have delivered it into our hands.^ Grant has been 
censured for delinquency at this critical juncture 
His own history of this crisis is as follows: "After 
the crossing had commenced, I proceeded by a 
steamer to Bermuda Hundred to give the necessary 
orders for the immediate capture of Petersburg. 
The instructions to Gen. Butler were verbal, an°d 
were for him to send Gen. Smith immediately', that 
night, with all the troops he could give him without 
sacrificing the position he then held. I told him 
that I would return at once to the Army of the Po- 
tomac, hasten its crossing, and throw it forward to 
Petersburg by divisions as rapidly as it could be 
done; that we could re-enforce our armies more rap- 
idly there than the enemy could bring troops against 
us. Gen. Smith got off as directed, and confronted 
the enemy's pickets near Petersburg before daylight 
next morning, but, for some reason that I have never 
been able to satisfactorily understand, did not get 
ready to assault his main hues until near sundown. 
Then, with a part of his command only, he made the 
assault, and carried the lines north-east of Petersburo- 
from the Appomattox Ptiver, for a distance of over 
two and a half miles, capturing fifteen pieces of 
artillery and three hundred prisoners. This was 
about seven, p.m. Between the line thus captured and 

1 Gen. Butler writes to Gen. Grant on June 13, two days before Smith's 
attack on Petersburg, " There were this morning but about two thousand men 
in Petersburg, partlj militia." 



422 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Petersburg there were no other works, and there 
was no evidence that the enemy had re-enforced 
Petersburg with a single brigade from any source. 
The night was clear, — the moon shining brightly, — 
and favorable to further operations. Gen. Hancock, 
with two divisions of the Second Corps, reached Gen. 
Smith just after dark, and offered the service of these 
troops as he (Smith) might wish, waiving rank to 
the named commander, who, he naturally supposed, 
knew best the position of affairs, and what to do 
with the troops. But instead of taking these troops, 
and pushing at once into Petersburg, he requested 
Gen. Hancock to relieve a part of his line in the cap- 
tured works, which was done before midnio-ht." 

In accordance with these instructions. Gen. Butler 
put Smith in motion early in the morning of the 
15th, with his own ten thousand, re-enforced by 
Kautz's division of cavalry and Hinks's division of 
colored troops.^ I am convinced, by an examination 
of the authorities, that Smith's advance was not as 
rapid as Gen. Grant asserts. He did not reach the 
Petersburg pickets until between ten and eleven 
o'clock in the morning, and all his troops were not 
deployed in action before its fortifications until noon. 
But this is the only assertion of Gen. Grant, in the 
paragraph I have transcribed from his report, which 
can be successfully impugned. It remains, therefore, 
for Gen. Smith to account for the hours between 
meridian and seven o'clock in the evening, and to 
show, moreover, why he suspended operations during 

1 Fifteen thousand in addition to the cavalry : probably eighteen thousand 
in all. 



WHAT DID HE DO IIST THE CIVIL AVAR ? 423 

" the night, which was clear, — the moon shining 
brightly, — and favorable to further operations," 
when the key to Richmond depended on the 
promptness of his movements. It is proffered in 
palliation of the tardiness of his arrival, that he was 
detained until nine o'clock by some rifle-pits, de- 
fended by inflmtry and a light battery, which were 
easily carried by the colored troops. When he 
reached Petersburg he was delayed by various im- 
pediments. He had been told that " cavalry could 
ride over the works : " but they actually consisted of 
"redans connected by rifle-pits ;" and, when the squad- 
rons of Kautz attempted this feat of horsemanship, 
they were arrested by an artillery fire. Gen. Smith 
finds, moreover, that he is baffled whenever he at- 
tempts to place his field-batteries in position. " Wher- 
ever I went on the line," he says in his report, " I 
found a heavy cross-fire of artillery from the enemy. 
The few artillery positions I could find, I tried to 
get our guns to open from ; but they were all driven 
in by the superior fire of artillery from the enemy's 
earth-works." ^ After a reconnoissance, he determined 
that an assault by column would be attended by too 
much risk, and therefore concluded to try a line of 
skirmishers. He did not come to this conclusion 
until five o'clock in the afternoon, when he was 
prevented from commencing it promptly by another 
untoward circumstance, which he thus describes in 
his report : " The chief of artillery had, upon his own 
responsibility, taken his guns to the rear, and un- 
hitched the horses to water." ^ 

' Smith's report of operations before Petersburg. ^ Idem. 



424 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

He assaulted at seven o'clock in the afternoon, as 
Mr. Swinton describes it, "with a cloud of tirailleurs 
advanced from the division of Hinks on the left, 
Brooks in the centre, and Martindale on the right 
(the rest of whose command awaited in line of battle 
to follow up any success), and under a sharp infantry 
fire carried the line. Brooks captured the works on 
the salient, with several hundred prisoners, and four 
guns, which, double-shotted with canister, h;id been 
kept in waiting for the expected column of assault. 
Hinks on the left, and Martindale on the right, fol- 
lowed up the success, the colored troops carrying four 
of the redoubts with their artillery." ^ Thus a '"' cloud of 
tirailleurs^'' — which in the vernacular means a heavy 
line of skirmishers, — without help from the "rest of 
the command," standing in line of battle, captured the 
works which the formidable division of Gen. Smith, 
re-enforced by Kautz and Hinks, had confronted, not 
since daylight, as Gen. Grant states, but since twelve 
o'clock meridian. With this success Gen. Smith rest- 
ed, for reasons which he gives in his report, in the 
following language : " We had thus broken through the 
strong line of rebel works ; but heavy darkness was 
upon us, and I had heard some hours before that 
Lee's army was rapidly crossing at Drury's Bkiff. I 
deemed it wiser to hold what we had than, by at- 
tempting to reach the bridges, to lose what we had 
gained, and have the troops meet with a disaster. I 
knew, also, that some portions of the Army of the Po- 
tomac were coming to aid us, and therefore the troops 
were placed so as to occupy the commanding positions 

1 Swintoii's Army of the rotoiuac, pp. 502, 503. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 425 

and wait for daylight." ^ I presume that Gen. Smith 
uses the word " darkness," by metonymy, for that part 
of the twenty-four hours between sunset and sunrise ; 
for, although Gen. Grant's statement has been criti- 
cally searched for flaws, no one has yet presumed to 
controvert his assertion, that " the night was clear, — 
the moon shining brightly, — and favorable to far- 
ther operations." It appears now, that Beauregard 
was so much distressed by the progress which had 
been made towards the capture of these fortifications, 
that he sent to Richmond in the evening for instruc- 
tions upon the point, whether he should abandon 
Petersburg or Bermuda Hundred, affirming his ina- 
bility to hold both.^ Mr. Swinton, who has canvassed 
the evidence bearing upon this attack with great 
acumen, and arrived at a conclusion adverse to the 
one I have ventured to adopt, concedes, in a note 
which he appends to his pages, that an officer of less 
deliberate modes of procedure would have won this 
valuable prize.^ 

1 Smith's report of operations before Petersburg. 

'^ Lieut.-Col. Fletcher's War in America. He affirms that he obtained 
this information from Beauregard himself. 

^ Gen. Smith miglit possibly have assaulted several hours before he actually 
did, had he chosen to take the risk of attacking without rcconnoissance. It is 
likely enough that Sheridan, had he been present instead of Smith, would have 
done so. But this involves no foundation for a charge of dereliction of duty. It 
is onl}^ a question of choice between two different methods of action, — the 
method which, taking great risks, may either lose greatly or greatly gain, and 
tliat which works by methodical procedure. (Swinton's Army of the Potomac, 
]). 503.) Mr. Greeley, who says of the general tenor of his own account of the 
Wilderness campaign, in his book on the American Conflict, that "no one 
will accuse him [Greeley] of partiality or special admiration for Gen. Grant," 
yet, in the part of it devoted to this attack upon Petersburg, thus speaks of 
Smith's failure to carry the fortifications on the afternoon of the 15th : "But 
there, though moments were inestimable. Smith paused, not assaulting till 
near sundown, when part of his force was sent forward, forming a very 



426 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

If Gen. Grant's efforts had ended here, he should be 
acquitted of any neghgence, in making every requi- 
site preparation for the capture of Petersburg on 
the 15th day of June, 1864. As soon as his army 
had commenced crossing the James, he had hastened 
to Bermuda Hundred by steamer ; he had sent four- 
fold odds,^ commanded by one of his ablest generals, 
aorainst a 2;arrison of old men and invalids, in works 
so indefensible, by the force which held them, that 
" two miles and a half of the line, with fifteen cannon," 
yielded to a " cloud of tirailleur s!' Such an impres- 
sion had been made upon the fortifications by a mere 
assault of skirmishers, that Beauregard was meditat- 
ing the surrender of Petersburg. Now the fault, if 
fault there be, must rest with the officer who resorted 
to methodical modes of procedure, when a vigorous 
coup de main would have finished the business ; who 
took the responsibility of delaying till morning, when 
time was priceless, procrastination fatal, and success 
depended entirely upon promptitude. 

But in addition to equipping Gen. Smith fully for 
this task, that assurance might be doubl}'' sure, 
orders were issued to Gen. Hancock, on the evening 

strong skirmish-line, and cleared the enemy's rifle-trenches in their front, cap- 
turing three hundred prisoners and sixteen guns, with a loss upon our part ot 
about six hunilrcd. And now, though the night was clear and tlic moon nearly 
full, Smith rested till morning, after the old but not good fashion of 1861-2." 
(American Conflict, p. 585.) Lieut.-Col. Fletcher, of the Fusileer Guards, who 
served with the Confederate army and has written a work upon the war, al- 
though he intimates, that, from calculations based on distances, Hancock should 
have readied Petersburg by noon, yet says, " Had Smith pressed forward vigor- 
ously on the 15th, the effort was not beyond his strength." 

^ Gen. Butler writes to Gen. Grant on June 15, the day of the attack, 
" Smith must have at least fifteen thousand men with him, besides cavalry and 
four batteries of artillery. / cannot conceive of more force being needed." 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 427 

of the 14th, to advance on the morning of the 15th, 
and take position with his army corps before the 
fortifications of Petersburg. Hancock was authorized 
to wait for subsistence stores from Bermuda Hun- 
dred ; but he marched " early in the morning," with- 
out these supphes. While pushing forward in the 
direction of Petersburg, he was met at five o'clock in 
the afternoon of the 15th, with orders from Gen. Grant 
" to move with haste to the support of Gen. Smith." 
Hancock forthwith hurried up Birney's division of 
the Second Corps, which reported to Smith prior 
to the attack I have already described, and took 
position on the left of Gen. Hinks. Soon after the 
attack. Gen. Hancock, with the rest of the corps, 
arrived. He communicated with Gen. Smith. He 
waived rank in deference to that general's knowledge 
of the situation. He was merely requested to occupy 
with the Second Army Corps that part of the works 
captured from the enemy. Gen. Smith was therefore 
furnished with Birney's division previous to the time 
when he was himself ready to make the attack ; 
which must certainly put to rest the claim, that he 
had not troops enough to carry the defences against 
its feeble garrison. Hancock's entire corps was also 
at his disposal during a moon-lighted night, which 
was " favorable for further operations." ^ 

The next morning, for which Smith had taken the 
responsibilities of waiting, found in the lines which 

• " During this day, the 14th June, the greater portion of the Second Corps 
was ferried across the river. In the evening, orders were sent to Major-Gen. 
Hancock to move early the next morning, and to take position in front of 
Petersburg. He was, however, authorized to delay until the receipt of subsistence 
jitorcs, which, in the absence of our supply-trains, were to be sent down from 



428 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

confronted him a force of veterans whose special 
function was the defence of redans and rifle-pits, not 
only against a " cloud of tirailleurs,'' but massed army 
corps and armies. The works, too, which were so 
assailable the day before, were strengthened by the 
best engineering skill, by garrisons and troops with- 
drawn from Bermuda Hundred, and by Lee's army 
as fast as it reached them from its recent intrench- 
inents at Cold Harbor.^ 

Bermuda Ilundrcd. Major-Gen. Hancock moved without the supplies, his 
leading division under Birney reporting to Major-Gen. W. F. Smith about an 
hour before that officer's attack on the enemy; and, by direction of Gen. Smith, 
Birney took position on tlic left of Gen. Hinks. Soon after, or about dark, 
Major-Gen. Hancock arrived with tlie rest of his corps, and, on communicating 
with Major-Gen. Smith, was by tliat officer requested to place his command in a 
part of the works captured from the enemy." — Gen. Meade's MS. Report, 
dated Nov. 1, 1864. 

Gen. Hancock telegraphed to Gen. Butler on June 15 as follows: "My 
leading division connected with Gen. Smith aboutjive o'clock, p.m. 

1 It appears that Gen. Smith's force was regarded both by Gens. Grant and 
Butler as sufficient to cajjture Petersburg. It is indisputable that Hancock was 
pushed forward to Harrison's Creek, a point within a mile of Petersburg. 
Much stress has been laid upon the fact, that the position to which Hancock 
was directed was not clearly marked out, and was also wrongly named upon 
the map; but this is immaterial, because he lost no time upon the march in 
search for it, and actually, according to his own telegram to Gen. Butler, 
supported Smith with " his leading division at five o'clock, p.m.," two hours and 
a half before Smith himself was ready to make the assault. Gen. Hancock, in 
a letter dated, "Near Petersburg, Va., 2Gth of June, 18G4," and addressed to 
" Brig.-Gen. S. Williams, Assistant Adjutant-General Army of the Potomac," 
asking for an investigation of newspaper statements wliich implicated the 
army corps he commanded in the failure of Gen. Smith's attack, says, "I 
claim that if Petersburg was garrisoned at that time only, as is now believed, 
that it should have been captured by the Eighteenth Corps, which was directed to 
assault the town, with, I believe, fifteen thousand men, and certainly with the 
assistance of the two divisions of the Second Corps, wliich I offered to Gen. Smith 
just after dark on the 15th, — these two divisions being then massed at Bryant's 
house, on the left and rear of Gen. Hinks's division, about one mile from Gen. 
Smith's front line." 

It therefore becomes immaterial whether Hancock was delayed or not on 
the morning of the 15th, in waiting for rations, as he actually arrived in season 
to support the attack of Smith. 

Upon this application, which Hancock made for a court of inquiry. Gen. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 429 

I have never heard it denied that Grant was re- 
quired, both by miUtary principles and by the remark- 
able relations of this fortress, to test in the first 
instance the resistance of the Petersburg intrench- 
inents ^by a general assault. The temper of the 
nation certainly never would have brooked a siege, 
until the impracticability of capturing a toute ou- 
irance a prize coveted beyond its deserts had been 
abundantly demonstrated. Although in monarchical 
governments it may be considered a proof of military 
rigor, and of loyalty to the art of war, to contemn 
popular sentiment in the conduct of a campaign, in 
a republic, — and especially in the great Rebellion, 
which was pre-eminently the people's war, — no 

Meade indorsed as follows : " Had Major-Gen. Hancock and myself been 
apprised in time of the contemplated movement against Petersburg, and the 
ncccssit}' of his co-operation, I am of the opinion he conld have been pt.shed 
much earlier to the scene of operations ; but as matters occurred, and with our 
knowledge of them, I do not see how any censure can be attached to Gen. 
Hancock and his corps." 

If Gen. Meade wishes to remain firm in the conviction, that " he was not 
apprised in time " of the contemplated movement against Petersburg, ii will 
not do for him to compare his recollections upon this point with that of another 
officer equally well informed. It will also remain for him to explain for what 
purpose iie ordered the Second Corps to Petersburg on the evening of the 14 th ; 
why, on the morning of the 15th, he hurried it on without waiting for the 
wagons to come up and issue rations ; why he finally directed the Second Coq)3 
to march forthwith to Petersburg without supplies from Bermuda Hundred. 
But Gen. Meade's knowledge, or want of knowledge, of the intended attack does 
not relieve Gen. Smith from the onus of tlie failure ; inasmuch as Hancock's 
leading division, after all, reported to Gen. Smith before Smith was liimself 
ready to make the assault. Of what consequence is it that Hancock "could 
have been pushed much earlier," when " his leading division connected witli 
Smith at five o'clock, p.m.," on the afternoon of this notable 15th of June, 
1864 1 If Gen. Meade's indorsement is to be construed as accusing Gen. 
Grant of withholding from his coadjutor timely information of tliis important 
movement, it is sufficient to say that it is traversed by the recollections of 
parties who knew all the flicts of the case, and by circumstantial evidence of a 
conclusive character. 



430 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

general can afford to disregard entirely the sentiment 
of the citizens. It was proved at a severe cost in 
the attack of the 16th, 17th, and 18th of June, that 
with Lee's veterans in the Petersburg works, strength- 
ened as they had been during the interval, they could 
resist a combined movement by the Armies of the 
Potomac and the James. Petersburg, which might 
have been captured the day before by one of Sher- 
idan's assaults, was now prepared to withstand a 
siege. The beleaguerment was commenced which 
finally decided the fate of the Confederacy. 

More of eclat than of substantial triumph would 
have been won by the capture, at this period, of this 
important outwork of Richmond. Writers are mis- 
taken when they assume that it would have anticipat- 
ed by ten months the surrender of Lee, and have 
terminated hostilities by the middle of June, instead 
of the middle of the following April. The defeat of 
our assault w^as not the most unfortunate incident 
of the struggle. It induced the rebel leaders to select 
lines of operations for the definite determination of 
the issue, which were most favorable to us. No field 
could have been chosen which provided the North 
with a more convenient base for supplies and re-en- 
forcf^ments, and where its superior resources could 
more effectually be brought to bear upon the waning 
Rebellion. Fortune sometimes sees farther than mor- 
tals who accuse her of being blind. The siege, in- 
stead of entailing, as has been asserted, probably 
averted, an "Iliad of woes." If the Confederate 
capital had proved untenable at this crisis by the 
capture of this fortress on its flank, the Army of Vir- 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL WAE ? 431 

ginia would have been merely transferred to the 
mountamous interior, and a theatre of war chosen 
where our armies would have been separated by long 
and vulnerable communications from the source of 
their vitality and dominion. Flagrant war might have 
blasted this green earth for tempestuous decades; 
far from the debatable land, peaceful vales, where 
the bounty of nature and the handiwork of man are 
now harmoniously blended, might have been desolated 
by predatory inroads continued until this day ; our 
frontiers, where every man now sits tranquilly under 
his own vine and fig-tree, might have repeated 
through a century of partisan strife the border his- 
tory of England and Scotland ; the diatribes of our 
wrangling Thersites might have been vindicated, the 
vaticinations of our political Cassandra verified, by 
the inauguration of military despotism on this repub- 
lican soil.^ 

1 Our losses from June 10 to June 20 were 85 officers, 1,113 enlisted men, 
killed; 361 officers, 6,492 enlisted men, wounded; 46 officers, 1,568 enlisted 
men, missing. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HE RECEIVES THE SURRENDER OF LEE 
[July, 1864 - April, 1865.] 

WITH the siege of Petersburg opens a new chap- 
ter in the campaign. The scope of this biogra- 
phy does not require from me a fall description of 
the events of the beleaguerment : the limits of my 
volume certainly forbid it. I am not writing military 
annals, but am pursuing the question, What did Grant 
do in the civil war ? for the purpose of illustrating 
his qualities as a general. I shall therefore content 
myself with characterizing, rather than detailing, the 
operations from the beginning of July till the spring 
campaign was opened, by Grant's order from City 
Point, of the 24th of March, 1865. 

Petersburg is at the head of sloop navigation on 
the Appomatox, one of the affluents of the James, and 
derives its military importance from being a fortress 
advanced twenty-two miles from the flank of Rich- 
mond, and from being the focus of all the railroads 
from the south and south-west which converge to- 
wards the Confederate capital, except the Danville 
Road, which finds its terminus directly in Richmond 
itself Both cities are in the same stratemc series, 
being, in fact, but the right and left of the same great 

432 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 433 

line. The bastions and connecting parapets in which 
Richmond lies unassailable connect themselves with 
similar defences in front of its chief dependency. 
Petersburg not only constitutes the right of Lee's 
fortified position, but. from its relations to the rail- 
roads, is the chief source of subsistence and supplies to 
the whole Army of Northern Virginia. I am not con- 
cerned with the works of the capital, except to indi- 
cate their connection with those of its advanced 
stronghold, and to note that the system is of such 
extent and magnitude that the complete investment 
of the whole is admitted to be impracticable. 

The problem of tlie campaign was to secure such 
a fortified position in front of Petersburg that it must 
either fall by the severance of its communications or 
by assault. The accomplishment of either of these 
results was not merely a step to the downfall of Rich- 
mond, but the dissolution of all that remained to the 
Confederacy in Virginia of political importance and 
military power. The entire strength of the enemy was 
rallied to prevent it ; the entire strength of the Union 
army was put forth to achieve it. 

By the 1st of July, Lee had perfected the fortifica- 
tions of Petersburg. Butler, at Bermuda Hundred, 
finds himself confronted by a line of redans, connect- 
ed by powerful infantry parapets stretching from the 
horseshoe bend of the James (which forms the penin- 
sula of Dutch Gap) to the northern bank of the Ap- 
pomattox, opposite Petersburg : these effectually se- 
cured the Petersburg and Richmond Railroad from the 
raids of the Army of the James. Crossing now to the 
south side of the Appomattox, works of a similar char- 

28 



434 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

acter commence before the right of the Army of the 
Potomac, extend along its entire front, and, stretching 
far beyond the Union left to Hatcher's Run, complete- 
ly infold Petersburg on the east and south. 

Grant did not design the complete investment of 
this elongated line ; but the communications of the 
enemy were not entirely closed, nor was the connec- 
tion of the two cities severed, even at the final catas- 
trophe. It was not a siege like Vicksburg ; which, it 
will be remembered, was completely hemmed in, so 
that a courier could not enter without encountermg 
our works, nor the enemy leave without storming our 
defences. The investment of Petersburg was the con- 
troverted question between the two belligerents; and 
Grant, at the outset, was obliged to assume a unique 
attitude towards it, which would secure to him every 
advantage he could compass, without a complete 
beleaguerment. 

By the time the enemy had constructed the works 
I have described, Grant had stretched, for two miles 
and a half, a series of redoubts connected by embank- 
ments, and had advanced embrasured batteries for 
storming facilities. His right was the Appomattox ; 
and the labor of the campaign, and the war problem 
to be solved, was to push and develop this inchoate 
investment to the left. The relation of the Potomac 
army to the strongholds of the enemy was not that 
of an anaconda, but a watch-dog, attempting not to 
strangle, but to spring on the victim. In selecting 
this attitude, Grant was controlled by the following 
considerations : 1. He required fortified lines which 
could be defended by a tithe of his army, and which 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 435 

could relieve the great mass of it from the pent-up 
duties of a regular siege. 2. He wished to operate 
against the communications of the foe in two modes, 
— either by extending his intrenched lines to the 
left, and actually cut and hold the enemy's railroads 
in the neighborhood of Petersburg; or to project mov- 
able columns to a distance, for the purpose of captur- 
ing and occupying the keys and intersections of the 
whole system of railroads, which were too remote to be 
reached by any prolongation of our works. 3. Grant 
wished his army left free to seize every advantage 
for its own welfare, or for the annoyance of the enemy, 
which might at any moment be presented at any point 
of the thirty or forty miles of line which Lee was 
obliged to guard. I should note, in connection with 
this last consideration, that, in addition to our two 
main armies on the south side of the James, Gen. Fos- 
ter had effected a lodgement at Deep Bottom, within 
ten miles of Richmond, on the north bank of the same 
river : Foster's lines were connected by pontoons with 
Bermuda Hundred. Grant must adapt his plans to 
the possibilities which might lie dormant in that pe- 
culiar post. 4. He must be prepared for an assault, 
not only on Petersburg, but also on Richmond. 

A glance at these considerations will disclose the 
rationale of the various movements durina: the sum- 
mer, autumn, and winter which followed : it will show, 
moreover, their relation to a systematized plan adopt- 
ed when the investment was commenced; it will 
relieve tliem from seeming confusion, and from the 
imputation of being spasmodic, accidental, tentative. 

With this guidance, turn your attention to the 



436 LITE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

scries of engagements Avhich were fought to extend 
our lines over communications in the vicinage of 
Petersburg. The nucleus from which our works grew 
into such tremendous power and magnitude was the 
intrenchinents which we captured from the enemy by 
our sanguinary assault: they, at first, covered only 
the Norfolk Road, which, as a communication, was 
comparatively worthless to the foe. Every successive 
step towards the left was the price of blood and the 
reward of victory. It was by what is called a " sharp 
affair," that Hancock extended our lines to the Jeru- 
salem Plank-road, and connected with Griffin, who 
held a fortified position still farther to the left. We 
were thus carried within three miles of that great 
channel of communication with the fruitful rea-ion of 
the Confedenicy upon the shores of the Southern 
Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The name of the 
"VYeldon Railroad has fairly become romantic, and will 
through all time recall the ferocious encounters of 
embattled hosts. When Warren finally intrenched 
himself athwart it, he held his dear-earned highway 
by repelling assaults from the select brigades of an 
army determined to tear it from his grasp. The gap 
between the Weldon and the Jerusalem Plank-road 
was gained by a severe engagement. For the Boyd- 
ton Plank-road, still farther to the left, which had 
become of importance to Petersburg since the cap- 
ture of the Weldon Road, another battle was fought. 
Peeples's Farm and Poplar Spring Church recall the 
bloody struggle of Griffin's division, and Forts Keene 
and Wheaton are the monuments of his success. The 
South-side Road now became the bone of contention : 



WHAT DID HE DO IIST THE CIVIL WAE, ? 437 

two expeditions were sent to capture it ; and, although 
the valuable prize at which they aimed eluded their 
grasp, our lines were extended thereby to Hatcher's 
Run. It was seven months of incessant warflire 
which stretched our investment fifteen miles to the 
left ; and every movement which conquered position 
was pronounced a failure, because it did not sever a 
railroad, or instantly demolish Petersburg. It was 
not until February that our lines covered the enemy's 
front. Grant was continually censured by unreason- 
able fault-finders, because every step towards this 
substantial advantage was not an overwhehning dis- 
comfiture of Lee. In looking exclusively at the dis- 
asters of the course, even reasonable men forgot that 
the goal was reached. When we remember Five 
Forks, we should not be unmindful that the seed of 
that victory was planted with our redoubts and in- 
trenchments upon Hatcher's Run. The foundations 
of that temple of flime which subsequently rose 
were laid by unostentatious struggles w^hich were 
never gazetted as triumphs ; and no surer progress 
towards the reduction of Richmond was made than 
in those seven months wherein there was no trum- 
peted renown. 

Glance now at the enterprises which were inaugu- 
rated to rupture and destroy those sources of supply 
which were too remote to be reached by our invest- 
ment. The Lynchburg, South-side, and Danville Rail- 
roads are the sole communications of the enemy 
which remain unclosed. Shall we suffer them to re- 
enforce, clothe, feed, the Army of Virginia? or are 
they of sufficient consequence to justify the risk of 



438 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

a movable column for their suppression? Burkes- 
ville, some forty miles from Petersburg, is at the in- 
tersection of these three roads. Shall Grant send a 
force to occupy it ? or shall he sit sucking his fingers 
at City Point, and impotently asking what shall be 
done ? Shall he remain vacillating; between different 
expedients until inaction is as flital as defeat ? Re- 
member, before you answer these questions, that a 
movable column is no safe venture, that it may cost 
lives, that you will forget all the good which was 
aimed at in your wails over the blood which is spilled 
and the losses which are incurred. Leaders of armies, 
unlike deliberating critics, cannot indulge in pro- 
longed debate or exhaustive analysis of measures: 
an emergency arises, it must be met at once ; an 
occasion presents itself, it must be instantly seized, or 
lost forever. 

In Grant's judgment, the juncture authorized the 
risk ; and the cavalry of Wilson and Kautz, eight 
thousand strong, are launched on a railroad raid. 
Wilson strikes the Weldon Road at Reams's Station, 
beyond where it is held by Warren, and burns the 
depot, and dismantles a long section of the track ; he 
repeats the experiment upon the Lynchburg Road, 
not without a sharp encounter with the enemy; he 
despatches Kautz to Burkesville, and both the South- 
side and Danville Railroads are stripped for several 
miles. The two cavalry divisions again reunite, and 
prosecute their work of havoc to the Roanoke Bridge, 
where they are smitten by an overmastering force, 
and driven homeward. On their retreat they are 
♦,ossed about, surge and resurge, like a vessel pursued 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 439 

over the ocean by hostile tempests. The foe closes 
round them, and shows no mercy : a body of rebels 
at Stony Creek, on the Weldon Road, shivers their 
rigging and top-gear; betaking themselves to Reams's 
Station, as to a friendly haven, they are unexpected- 
ly buffeted by remorseless foes. The two divisions 
of cavalry separate, and flee across the Nottoway; 
hunted and persecuted, they struggle to their camp 
by circuitous courses, with the loss of artillery and 
cavalry, both steeds and riders broken-winded and 
dishevelled. 

Under the same category were the operations of 
Warren, in December, upon the Weldon Road ; for, 
although this avenue was securely held by us in the 
neighborhood of Petersburg, the enemy were still 
enabled to derive advantages from it, by unloading at 
some of its remote depots their stores, and transport- 
ing them in wagons over the Boydton Plank-road, 
which was still exempt from our control. It was now- 
proposed to completely destroy the road for twenty- 
five miles to the southward. Warren's" division de- 
molished the railroad bridge over the Nottoway, 
crossed the stream, and tore up the track for twenty 
miles, to the Meherrin River, where their further 
progress was arrested by two forts, at Hickford's 
Station. They returned to camp with but slight loss. 

Akin in plan, and subserving the same general de- 
sign, was the superb sweep of Sheridan, with ten 
thousand sabres, up the valley of the Shenandoah. 
He shakes off the broken fragments of Early, which 
buzz around his flanks; gallops over Middle-Fork 
Bridge while the enemy are striving to burn it ; clat- 



440 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

ters throngli the streets of Staunton ; wheels sharply 
forWaynesborough at the east; storms over the demor- 
alized remnants which his old antagonist gathered into 
Eockfish Gap ; strikes Charlottesville ; destroys tracks, 
culverts, bridges of the Lynchburg and Richmond 
Raih^oads ; dismantles the canal at Columbia ; courses 
over the Pamunkey around the army of Lee ; arrives 
at the White House. You may trace his vast orbit by 
the wrecks and debris of bridges, culverts, canals, 
tracks, trains, and engines. 

Two formidable expeditions Avere detached from 
the Petersburg line to develop any advantages which 
might lie in Foster's post at Deep Bottom, on the north 
side of the James, and but ten miles from Richmond. 
Both of these detachments were under Hancock's di- 
rection. The first broke the enemy's line in Foster's 
front, with the capture of prisoners, guns, and colors. 
It secured and occupied an advanced line, extending 
from the James to the Lono:-Brid2:e and New-Market 
Roads. The demonstration drew to the north of the 
James a large part of the army of Lee : three of his 
corps only were left to guard the Petersburg line. 
This depletion of the fortifications was improved to 
explode a mine which Gen. Burnside had excavated 
under one of the enemy's batteries in his front. There 
was a discreditable mismanagement in the execution 
of this enterprise, and Gen. Grant characterizes it for 
me as "a needlessly miserable affair." The second 
expedition of Hancock to Deep Bottom, near the 
middle of August, was also successfid in the capture 
of guns, prisoners, and colors; but its most decisive 
result was to develop the unas^aihible strength of 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 441 

the enemy's fortifications in front of Foster's lines. I 
have thus briefly indicated the rationale and result of 
the chief operations during the summer and winter 
after the investment of Petersburg was commenced. 

The combined expeditions of the Army of the 
James and the Army of Western Virginia, upon 
which Grant greatly relied when the Wilderness cam- 
paign commenced, for reasons which it is not the 
province of this biography to discuss, ftiiled to realize 
the full measure of advantage which was antici- 
pated from their co-operation. While the influence 
of Bermuda Hundred was, at the worst, merely nega- 
tive, the operations of Sigel and Hunter were a source 
of incessant anxiety to Grant. The weighty contribu- 
tion which success in the valley of the Shenandoah 
would have brought to that imperilled march from 
the Rapidau to the James was not felt, until Sheridan 
" by knowing his geography and fighting his men,' 
closed this avenue of strength and sustenance to Rich- 
mond. 

The corresponding movement, which was committed 
to Sherman, was executed with an ability which has 
filled the world with his fame. No re-enforcements 
from that direction invigorated the Army of Virginia, 
while into the Army of the Potomac was incessantly 
poured the replenishment of Sherman's victories. 

1 An officer of the Army of the Potomac, who was at first inclined to at- 
tribute Sheridan's success to lucli rather than merit, reversed his opinions after 
one of the crowning victories of the valley, and with great frankness indicated 
to Sheridan his former opinion and its recent changes. Sheridan rather dis- 
claimed the complimentary part of the remark, and said, " All that a man wants 
to do is to know his geography, and to fight his men." 



" 1 



442 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

From first to last, it was a decided auxiliary to (J rant. 
When stronghold after stronghold fell before his 
favorite coadjutor, when vast areas of productive soil 
were subjugated by that mighty march from Atlanta 
to the sea, when he constantly narrowed the domain 
from which Lee drew his supplies, and isolated Rich- 
mond by severing intercommunication with the most 
fruitful of its dependencies, the Confederate capital 
began to feel the weight of the colossal combination 
which Grant had oriranized for its overthrow. _ 

The diversion to Washington, which Lee initiated 
for the purpose of relieving him from the pressure 
which was closing round him, failed signally to fulfil 
his sanguine anticipations. If he had any expecta- 
tions that the expeditionary force of Early would 
capture the city, it impugns his military forecast ; if 
he hoped that a menace to our capital would relax 
the grasp of Grant, it convicts him of the folly of 
underrating an antagonist : as an attack, or a threat, 
it was alike fruitless of any valuable results. 

The second spasmodic struggle of Lee revealed a 
still more impoverished magazine of expedients. It 
was an attempt of the oppressor in the agonies of 
dissolution to invoke the aid of the oppressed. To 
recruit the exhausted ranks of Southern armies, free- 
dom was tendered to all fencible slaves. It is hard 
to say whether the white oligarchy received this prof- 
fer with the most mortification, or the abject race 
with the most contempt. An unqualified liberation 
at this late period would hardly have averted 
impending doom; but qualified emancipation on 
condition of enlistment, while it could not possibly 



"WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? 443 

conciliate the slave, was to the master a manifesto 
of desperation under the seal of the Confederate 
Government. 

The third expedient of Lee was more sagacious in 
policy, but equally akin to despair. It was Lee's pur- 
pose at this time to abandon the defence of the capital, 
and, retiring in the direction of Lynchburg or Danville, 
to impose upon the Union army another expensive 
and prolonged campaign. Upon his muster-rolls at 
this period were sixty thousand men ; ^ and it was 
hoped, that, by a junction with Johnston, Sherman 
might be overwhelmed. The project was so plausible, 
that, at the close of the winter. Grant was more fearful 
of the withdrawal of the rebel army than of its pro- 
longed resistance at Petersburg. The capture of Fort 
Stedman, which proved in the end as miserable an 
affair to the rebels as the mine j^asco had been to us, 
was the initiative of this measure. Lee was willing: 
to stake the cause upon this final throw. It was 
commended by every military consideration ; but he 
was driven from its execution, either by the clamor 
of the Confederate journals, or by the disapproval of 
its political authorities. 

On March 28, 1865, Grant issued from City Point 
the memorable order which was destined to vanquish 

1 " Had Lee's elective force (by his muster-rolls 64,000 men, but suppose 
the number available for such a campaign but 50,000), swelled by such re-en- 
forcements as Hardee, Beauregard, Wheeler, and Hoke might have afforded 
him, been hurled upon Sherman, as he confidently approached Savannah, Co- 
lumbia^ or Fayetteville, it is indeed possible that the blow, so closely resembling 
that dealt to Cornwallis at Yorktown by Washington and Rocharabcau, might 
have been effectually contested (as theirs was not) by the hurried movement 
southward, by water, of corps after corps of the Army of the Potomac," &c.,&c. 
— Greeley's American Confiict, p. 723. 



4-U LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Rebellion, and destroy the Confederacy. By its au- 
thority, in our line of works in front of the enemy, 
to f]:uard them as lon<]r as the emerorencios of the 
proposed movement would require, the Ninth Army 
Corps was stationed, and constituted the pivot upon 
which the whole Army of the James and the Potomac, 
with Sheridan's cavalry, was wheeled upon the vul- 
nerable right of Lee, at the south-west of Petersburg, 
which had been the aim of so many unsuccessful 
adventures. It is unnecessary to describe the pre- 
liminary marches by which the various divisions of 
this ponderous flanking mass reached the positions 
assigned them for the execution of this enterprise. 
Omitting the various routes of the different corps 
from Bermuda Hundred, from Deep Bottom, from 
the stations and forts in front of Petersburg, I will 
briefly delineate their positions on the morning of 
the 30th of March. 

Sheridan was in possession of Dinwiddle Court- 
house, and constituted the extreme left of our wheel- 
ing line ; then followed, in the order named, Warren 
with the Fifth Corps, Humphreys now in command 
of the Second, Ord with tlte Army of the James, 
Wright with the famous Sixth, connecting the mov- 
ing force at Hatcher's Run with the pivot on which it 
was to swing, — the stationary Ninth, intrenched 
along the front of Petersburg, even to the old resting- 
place of our right upon the Appomattox River. It 
had been Grant's original purpose to leave Sheridan 
foot-free, to operate upon distant lines of communica- 
tion; but on the evening of the 29th of April, visited 
f)y a premonition that the end was near, he changed 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR? 445 

his purpose, and sent to Sheridan the following re- 
markable despatch: "I now feel like ending the 
matter, if it is possible to do so, before going back, 
I do not want you, therefore, to cut loose, and go 
after the enemy's roads at present. In the morning 
push around the enemy, if you can, and get on to his 
right rear. The movements of the enemy's cavalry 
may, of course, modify your action. We will act all 
together, as one army, here until it is seen what can be 
done with the enemy." The country in front of the 
wheelinc? force was covered with such entanojlements 
as forests and swamps, which our army had already 
encountered in previous movements over this ground. 
Upon it, also, intrenched positions were established, 
which Lee had drawn out from Hatcher's Run, cover- 
ing both the Boydton-PIank and White-Oak Roads, 
and designed also to protect the South-side Railroad, 
which was now his main avenue of communication. 
I should also note, that there were detached works, 
intended to defend the intersection of five roads, at 
Five Forks. 

The movement of our heavy masses for the last 
three days had attracted* the observation of Lee, and 
it required but little of his discernment to divine 
that the vulnerable right was again to be assailed. 
He was probably unaware how much our own lines 
had been enfeebled by withdrawing from them this 
immense detachment. The Confederate commander 
was torn between two demands equally imperious, 
— the necessity of protecting his elongated line from 
a rupture at any point, which would have been an 
irreparable calamity ; and the necessity of guarding 



446 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

his communications from a demonstration which 
threatened inevitable destruction to all the interests 
committed to his charge. From Richmond to Five 
Forks, he depleted his works down to the extreme 
minimum required for their defence, and concen- 
trated every available man upon the threatened 
position. He confronts impending fate with that 
resolution and fortitude which are the celestial ar- 
mor of great souls in dire extremities of fortune. 
He was conscious that but a very few hours of mili- 
tary authority remained : he foresaw the beginning 
of the end, but he still struggled, hero-like, with 
accumulating ruin. During this closing scene, he 
wielded his baton with as much serenity, and held 
it with as firm a grasp, as if the perpetual command 
of an irresistible army had been decreed to him 
by fate. 

A drenching rain descended on the night of the 
29th, which was prolonged during the following day. 
Active hostilities were pretermitted by the express 
order of the lieutenant-general. The weather be- 
friended Lee, enabling him to concentrate his troops 
and complete his dispositions. 

It must be remembered that Sheridan, at Dinwiddle 
Court-house, was several miles to the left of the 
infantry which was attempting to execute Grant's 
order. On the morning of the 31st of March, War- 
ren was posted to the westward of the Boydton 
Plank-road, with his left flank exposed to one of 
those sudden swoops which were always expected 
from the Confederate commander when in an aggres- 
sive temper. Humphreys, with the Second Corps, is 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 447 

upon his right. In order to guard his naked left 
from Lee's stereotyped manoeuvre, Warren had dis- 
posed his three divisions en echelon, to meet the 
assault from whatever direction it might come, and 
had massed them ; because, in his judgment, that 
disposition was preferable in this dilemma to an 
attenuated line. Ayres, in advance, confronts the 
White-Oak Road ; Crawford's division is to the rear 
and right of Ayres ; Griffin's division to the rear and 
right of Crawford's; Humphreys, with the Second 
Army Corps, to the right of Griffin. If I understand 
the first movement which Warren initiated, it was 
to advance his skirmishers and a brio-ade from the 
woods, in order to occupy the White-Oak' Road, to 
strengthen his position, and command a view of the 
enemy's whereabouts. While executing this move- 
ment, Lee fell upon Warren from two directions, with 
an impetuous spring. Ayres was hurled back upon 
Crawford, and both upon Griffin, where, owing to the 
fortunate formation of the corps, the three divisions 
readily combined, and presented a solid front, which 
not only held, but dashed back discomfited, the rebel 
columns. Lee was foiled in the onslaught ; and, 
with assistance from Gen. Humphreys, a vehement 
counter-attack was made, which drove Jback the ene- 
my to the fortifications upon the White-Oak Road, 
whence he had emerged. 

Meanwhile Sheridan by skilful manoeuvres had 
seized Five Forks, four miles to the left of the line 
which was held by Warren. The military advantage 
of this position was that it opened an inroad upon 
the whole fortifications of the enemy as far as Peters- 



448 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

burg, and threatened consequences which might 
be fatal in their character. Persisting in the expedi- 
ents of sudden springs, which was Lee's sole hope of 
deliverance from his present strait, he gathered his 
forces in hand, and threw them with tremendous 
violence upon Sheridan's cavalry at Five Forks. He 
was more fortunate in this adventure ; for he not only 
recaptured the strategical position which Sheridan 
had seized, but drove him back to Dinwiddle Court- 
house, and held him there by an intrenched battle- 
line. When Gen. Grant consents to illustrate his own 
character in a description of military events, I freely 
surrender to him the pen. I think that he does so 
in the following description of Sheridan's behavior at 
this crisis : — 

" Here Gen. Sheridan displayed great generalship. 
Instead of retreating with his whole command on the 
main army, to tell the story of superior forces en- 
countered, he deployed his cavalry on foot, leaving 
only mounted men enough to take charge of the 
horses. This compelled the enemy to deploy over a 
vast extent of woods and broken country', and made 
his progress slow. At this juncture he despatched to 
me what had taken place, and that he was dropping 
back slowly on Dinwiddle Court-house. Gen. Mc- 
Kenzie's cavalry and one division of the Fifth Corps 
were immediately ordered to his assistance. Soon 
after, receiving a report from Gen. Meade that 
Humphreys could hold our position on the Boydton 
Eoad, and that the other two divisions of the Fifth 
Corps could go to Sheridan, they were so ordered at 
once. Thus the operations of the day necessitated 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 



449 



the sending of "Warren, beccause of his accessibility, 
instead of Humphreys, as was intended, and pre- 
cipitated intended movements." 

Calendar. 



APRIL, 



1865. 



BEMARKS. 



Day of Month. 


Day of Week. 


Grand Finale. 


First. 


Saturday. 


Battle of Five Forks. 


Second. 


Sunday. 


Lee evacuates Petersburg. 


Third. 


Monday. 


Pursuit commenced. 


Fourth. 


Tuesday. 


Lee struck at Jetersville. 


Fifth. 


Wednesday. 


Chase changed to a hunt. 


Sixth. 


Thursday. 


Ewell surrenders. 


Seventh. 


Friday. 


Grant and Lee exchange notes. 


Eighth. 


Saturday. 


Lee refuses to surrender. 


Ninth. 


Sunday. 


Lee surrenders. 



Re-enforced by the Fifth Corps, Sheridan was 
enabled to resume the aggressive on Saturday morn- 
ing;, and fidit the most brilliant action of the war. 
With powerful squadrons he crowds the enemy from 
two temporary lines, and by two o'clock drives Pick- 
ett's and Johnson's divisions of Lee's army, into their 
main defences at Five Forks, on the White-Oak Road. 
He manipulates cavalry and infantry with the hand 
of a master. While driving the enemy into their 
works, he not only uses his cavalry as an assailing 
force, but as an impenetrable mask, behind which 
Warren is enabled to array his line and mass his 



450 LIFE OF GENERAL GEAIfT. 

columns in such a manner that their whole weight 
may flill, when the curtain is withdrawn, upon the 
Confederate left. Still enveloping the works with 
his cavalry, Sheridan directed Gen. Merritt to 
manoeuvre as though he was attempting to turn the 
enemy's right flank : he notified him that Warren 
would deliver his blow on the left ; he ordered him 
to sound his bugles for a charge the moment that the 
volleys of musketry announced that the Fifth Corps 
was engaged. He despatched McKenzie's sabres up 
the White-Oak Road, to attack re-enforcements has- 
tening from Petersburg. The subordinate executed 
the order with the ability of his chief, and counter- 
marched to Sheridan before Warren was ready to 
charge. Warren, with formidable columns and lines, 
now advances to the White-Oak Road, as if he was 
aiming at the front of the enemy's works ; but sud- 
denly, under cover of the cavalry, he changes fiice to 
the westward, and instantly expands a battle-line to 
the left and rear of the astounded enemy, and per- 
pendicular to his position. The line advances with a 
precision and an clan which were equally splendid. 
To meet it, Pickett and Johnson throw back their left 
in the form of a crochet, and thus receive the vigor- 
ous onslaught of Warren on their flank. 

The Fifth Corps charge on impetuously, and, in- 
spirited by the example of their officers, double up 
the enemy's left and centre. Prompt at the precon- 
certed signal. Gen. Merritt responds at the right of 
the enemy's works ; and his brave cavalrymen carry 
them at the same time that Warren is demolishing 
the left. By blows thus harmoniously delivered, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 451 

fortifications three miles in length are simultaneousl}^ 
captured, and the divisions which held them disas- 
trously routed. Immediately the cavalry squadrons 
scour the White-Oak Eoad, seizing the field-batteries 
of Pickett, and turning them upon the fugitives. So 
demoralized were the enemy by this overwhelming 
defeat, that no serious stand was made after their 
lines Avere mastered. Upwards of five thousand 
prisoners fell into our hands: broken and disordered 
fragments of these divisions were pursued long after 
dark by Merritt and McKenzie, for a distance of six 
miles.^ 

Darkness had hardly hushed the rattle of rrius- 
ketry at Five Forks before the cannon which had 
been mute during the da}^, as if hanging in rapt 
attention upon the momentous issues of this battle, 
now opened all their brazen throats fiom the Ap- 
pomattox to Hatcher's Run, in one wild, universal, 
triumphant peal of thunder. The night was hideous 
with screeching shells, and bombs tracing net-works 
of lurid fire over the serene azure of patient heaven. 
It was but the prelude for a general assault by Sun- 
day's dawn on the blackened redoubts which had so 
long defied the majesty of the Republic. Parke con- 
fronted intrenchments which he easily stormed ; but 
he was halted, as by Alpine cliffs, before that grim 
old cordon of interior earth-works, the most fossilized 
of the whole series, which had held our army at bay 
from the beginning. Wright, with feebler defences 
before him, rushed on with victorious and unimpeded 
step, sweeping artillery and prisoners from the para- 

^ Sheridan's Report. Swinton's Army of the Potomac, pp. 507-8. 



452 LIFE OF GENERAL GHANT. 

pets and redans down to the Boydton Road ; where 
he was joined by a division of Ord, who had scaled 
the earthen battlements in their front, and now 
wheeled with "Wrinrht towards the final refus^e of the 
hunted foe. The only resistance which Humphreys 
met was from one redoubt ; and, with its capture, 
the intrenched lines, but yesterday bristling witli 
cannon and foes, wilted impotently for miles. Naught 
remained for him to do, but to leave one division to 
gather up the dissolving columns of the enemy 
which remained west of Hatcher's Run, and march 
with the other to concentrate upon Wright and Ord 
before the most interior defences of the fortress. 
The combined corps were arrested in their advance 
by Fort Gregg, which was garrisoned by an intrepid 
band of Mississippi sharpshooters, who repulsed with 
great slaughter several fiery charges which Gibbon 
delivered, and were not overcome until seven-eighths 
of their battalion lay weltering in their gore. The 
Union army was now closed upon that circumscribed 
chain of works from the Appomattox on the east 
to the Appomattox on the west of Petersburg. In 
the midst of this wreck and disaster, the spirit of 
Lee remains undismayed. Encouraged by a small 
re-enforcement from Longstreet, he fiills upon our 
troops with all his wonted fire. A commanding emi- 
nence in the vicinity is held by the Ninth Army 
Corps. The undaunted soul of the Confederate 
commander can not brook its threatening presence. 
He directs Gen. A. P. Hill, of kindred genius, to 
gather up the broken and fainting columns for a 
final contest. Hill storms the crest with the daunt- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 453 

less heroism of liis palmiest hour, determined that 
a corps with such traditions should expire with a 
glory worthy of its meridian culmination. The 
onset was so terrific that re-enforcements were re- 
quired to resist it, and worthy of the corps leader 
whose name had been identified from the beiiinnino; 
with the proudest exploits of the Army of Northern 
Virginia. It was in the last desperate charge for 
possession of this coveted eminence that Hill was 
slain. There was something worthy of that dis- 
criminating Fate worshipped of yore by classic Ar- 
gives, that the last dauntless blow should be struck by 
Hill that the last height which signalized the expiring 
struggle of the beleaguering army for victory on this 
field should be stained with the last blood of, a chief- 
tain to whom the indomitable defence of Petersburg 
has assigned an imperishable name. 

During this memorable Sunday morning, President 
Lincoln was at City Point, at Grant's headquarters. 
Jefferson Davis was attending church at Richmond. 
While the one was disseminatino; throu<i;h the land 
exhilarating tidings of crowning victory, the seat of 
the other at St. Paul's was approached by an orderly, 
who placed in his hands this message of direful 
import from Gen. Lee : " My lines are broken in 
three places. Eichraond must be evacuated to-night." 
Davis walked down the aisle with the weight of an 
added score of years in his gait. Words were not 
needed ; not more clearly did trembling Belshazzar 
read impending doom on the graven wall, than the 
hushed congregation in the hnggard countenance of 
the chief conspirator. The inhabitants of Richmond 



454 



LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 



were unprepared for this knell of death. Within 
thirty miles of their doors, the late both of their city 
and Government had been decided in battle ; but all 
information was so vigorously tabooed, that people 
were huo-o-ino; to their deluded bosoms on this bril- 
liant sabbath morning a lying rumor which was rife 
five days ago, that the independence of the South- 
ern Confederacy had been established by a decisive 
victory of Lee over the beleaguering army in a 
night attack. The news of misfortune, we are told, 
travels without aid of newspapers ; but even those 
who had correctly translated the woe-begone visage 
of Davis could not induce their incredulous neigh- 
bors to believe that the end was near. The morning 
had been unusually quiet upon the streets, — no 
movement of troops, no rattling of artillery wheels ; 
and the idea was scouted, that war with its train of 
horror could enter this bahny air, alight on this 
beaming landscape, and disturb the serenity of church- 
going bells, happy homes, and cloudless skies. But, 
as the afternoon waned, the unusual clatter of 
wagons, pale fugitives in retreat, throngs at the Dan- 
ville depot, boxes and trunks about the departments 
and military headquarters, disorder and confusion 
increasing with the minutes, convinced the most 
sceptical that a crisis was in progress. Systematic 
individuals of regular habits rushed to the public 
offices for intelligence : but the owl-like mystery 
habitual to official personages was redoubled ; every 
responsible officer was invisible ; there was a flitting 
from room to room of messengers, too hurried to 
i^top and speak ; and, as usual in such junctures, it was 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 455 

all question and no answer, all bewilderment and no 
reliable information. What was still more ominous, 
the cellars and garrets began to disgorge into the 
streets the sons and daughters of Belial, scenting 
prey from afar, and with intuitive perception of 
approaching misrule and confusion. When a special 
train, late in the afternoon, bore away Jefferson 
Davis, never more to return to his capital as presi- 
dent, it needed no proclamation to inform the most 
incredulous that the sceptre had passed from his 
grasp, and that Abraham Lincoln was knocking at 
the gate of Richmond. 

In the presence of impending tumult, the wisdom 
and decorum of Richmond was represented by its 
city council, convened in an obscure room in the up- 
per part of the silent and deserted capital, where a 
half-dozen were gathered round a rude table, with 
an " illiterate grocer " at the head of the Board. He 
was " making his last exhibition of Southern spirit, 
and, twenty-four hours thereafter, subscribed himself 
to some very petty Federal officer, ' most respectfully 
your most obedient servant.' " This select conclave 
of the deliberation of an enlightened capital, in a 
great misfortune, was occasionally adorned by the 
presence of Mayor Mayo, who hurried up to it with 
the latest news from the war department, " excited, 
incoherent, chewing tobacco defiantly, but yet full of 
pluck, having the mettle of the true Virginian gen- 
tleman." The conclusion to which this council of 
sages arrived was to maintain order in the city by 
two militia regiments, to destroy the liquor in the 
stores and warehouses, and to establish a patrol 



456 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

through the nio-ht. But the mihtia ran through the 
fingers of their officers ; the patrol could not be found 
after a certain hour ; and in a short while the whole 
city was plunged in mad confusion and indescribable 
horrors.^ 

To Ewell, as commander of the Confederate rear- 
guard, had been assigned the stern duty of blowing 
up the iron-clad vessels, burning the few transports 
at the naked wharves, and the three bridges v/hich 
spanned the James. The Virginia, the Richmond, 
and an iron ram exploded with a tremendous concus- 
sion, which was the first signal to Sheridan to com- 
mence the hunt ; the burning bridge blazoned pursuit 
on the heavens long before it was known at our 
headquarters that Lee was a fugitive from the Peters- 
burir lines. Ewell had also been commissioned to fire 
the four principal tobacco depots, near the centre of 
Richmond, in close proximity to the combustible tlour- 
mills of Gallego, and so situated that the conflagra- 
tion of the business part of the metropolis was inevi- 
table upon the execution of the order. In spite of 
the remonstrance of that pattern of Virginia gentle- 
men, Mr. Mayo, the corps leader carried out his ruth- 
less instructions to the letter. The flames leaped 
from roof to roof, from warehouse to warehouse 
around the basin, passing rapidly beyond all control 
from street to street, continually widening the circle, 
and spreading the area of destruction, until they had 
consumed every bank, every auction-store, ever}' in- 
surance-office, nearly every commission-house, and 
most of the fashionable stores. Hogsheads and pipes 

1 Pollard is responsible for this description of the city council (p. 694). 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 457 

of liquor are drained into the street, the gutters run 
with Bourbon, the air is stifling from its burning 
fumes ; and staggering soldiers lap the dirty rivulets, 
or scoop up delirium with their hands. A universal 
orgie of drunkenness and theft, of vice and crime, 
mingled with the shrieks of women and the blas- 
phemies of fiendish men, celebrates the abandon- 
ment by military power of a city which had denied 
the binding obligation of the highest civil law.^ 

Weitzel, who was in command of our lines north 
of the James, and watching Richmond, held high 
carnival on this eventful Sunday night ; foi his ordeirs 
were to make ostentatious demonstrations of strength 
and purpose. From all his bands, as if an army of 
musicians were at his disposal, the melodious strains 
of our national airs, with all their variations, were 
wafted to the ears of the opposite intrenchments, now 
held by the corps of Longstreet; who also, having 
designs of his own to conceal, fairly vied with Weit- 
zel's musical celebration, blowing Confederate airs 
from all the sonorous metal he could command. It 
was not until two o'clock that the rival concerts were 
hushed ; but Weitzel, who was under orders to storm 
the impregnable works in his front, on Monday morn- 
ing, still kept vigil with Shcpley, his chief-of-staff 
Suspicions had been aroused by various minute cir- 
cumstances. Orders had been given to attempt the 
capture of a picket-guard, and one was finally caught, 
who said that he belonged to the Thirty-seventh 
Virginia Artillery, which Shepley knew from other 
sources of information to be posted in his front ; but 

1 Pollard's Lost Cause, pp. 695, 696. 



458 LIFE OF GEXEEAL GEAXT. 

the captive was puzzled to tell where his commander 
and regiment were at this present time. Shepley was 
convinced by this intimation, that Longstreet, for some 
purpose not yet apparent, was depleting his line. At 
half-past three, a deserter was brought in to Shepley, 
who confessed that he had been stationed on picket- 
duty, but was not relieved at the appointed hour, 
and, having returned to his own cam|) without being 
able to find his regiment, concluded to betake him- 
self to our lines for society. Shepley immediately 
inferred that Richmond was being evacuated. The 
conjecture was made a certainty at four o'clock, by a 
negro boy, who drove to our camp in a buggy, and 
announced it as a fact. The deafening roar of the 
explosions was also heard, and the illuminated heav- 
ens were visible from the watch-tower. It wns im- 
prudent to move until dawn ; for the works of the 
enemy were intricate, and the ground in their front 
was planted with torpedoes. AYeitzel forthwith de- 
spatched a half-company of cavalry, under Major A. 
H. Stevens of the Fourth Massachusetts, and Major 
Graves of Weitzel's staff. The forty troopers gal- 
loped without molestation into the Confederate capi- 
tal, and produced some sensation, according to Pol- 
lard, who was an eye-witness of their advent " The 
sun was an hour or more above the horizon, when 
suddenly there ran up the whole length of Main 
Street the cry of ' Yankees ! Yankees ! ' The upper 
part of this street was choked with crowds of pil- 
lagers, — men provided with drays, others rolling bar- 
rels up the street or bending under heavy burdens, 
and, intermixed with them, women and children with 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 459 

smaller lots of plunder in bags, baskets, tubs, buckets, 
and tin pans. As the cry of ' Yankees ! ' was raised, 
this motley crowd tore up the street, cursing, scream- 
ing, trampling upon each other, alarmed by an ene- 
my not yet in sight, and madly seeking to extricate 
themselves from imaginary dangers. Presently, be- 
yond this crowd, following up the tangled mass of 
plunderers, but not pressing or interfering with them, 
was seen a small body of Federal cavalry riding 
steadily along. Forty Massachusetts troopers, de- 
spatched by Gen. Weitzel to investigate the condition 
of affairs, had ridden without let or hindrance into 
Richmond. At the corner of Eleventh Street they 
broke into a trot for the public square ; and in a few 
moments their guidons were planted on the Capitol, 
and fluttered there, — a strange spectacle in the early 
mornin<2; lisrht." ^ 

By daylight, Weitzel put his columns in motion, 
with Draper's colored brigade on the lead. The 
rebels, in their haste, had forgotten to remove the red 
flass, desio-ned to indicate to themselves the site of 
torpedoes ; and our troops rapidly cleared the exterior 
defences, and marched into Richmond by the Osborn 
Road. At six o'clock in the morning, Weitzel, with 
his staff, galloped past the column, and entered the 
suburbs of the burning capital, amid crumbling walls 
and the explosion of the ordnance stores, abandoned 
to the flames by the Confederate rear-guard. The 
offlcers were received with vociferous and prolonged 
shouts from negro throats. Presently appears the 
leading platoons of the victorious army. The in- 

1 Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 696. 



460 LIFE OF GENEEAL GEAis'T. 

spiriting bursts of national airs strike alike the ears 
of rejoicing freedmen and sullen traitors. The long 
array of baj^onets, and ensigns spread to the breeze, 
passed the Exchange Hotel to the eastern slope of 
Church Plill, down the hill, across the valley, up the 
next slope, along the line of fire, through the curtains 
of smoke, amid the roar of the conflagration and the 
deafening concussion of the shells left by the retreat- 
ing army. The national standard of the Twelfth 
Maine Regiment soon supplants the cavalry guidons 
on the dome of the Capitol, and is saluted with the 
deafening huzzas of the delivered and the deliverers. 
There is but brief time for either parade or triumph : 
the first duty of Weitzel is to counteract the devour- 
ing element which the Confederate arni}^, with shock- 
ing inhumanity, turned loose upon the devoted city. 
But with the miserable fire-apparatus which the city 
authorities placed at his command, the flames cannot 
be extinguished until the mercantile heart of Rich- 
mond is consumed. 

On Monday morning, at early dawn, the advance 
of our skirmishers upon the interior lines of Peters- 
burg disclosed that the defenders had silently with- 
drawn during the night. Grant organized the chase 
with prodigious energy, and designated its lines and 
directions with consummate skill. Now appeared the 
vast advantage of the investment, which, at such a 
sacrifice of blood, had been pushed around the right 
of the enemy's intrenched line ; for it cut off the 
fugitive army from the Danville and South-side Rail- 
road, which Avas Lee's sole line of retreat. He was 
now constrained to flee by the north side of the Ap- 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 461 

pomattox to Chesterfield Court-house, where he halted 
to gather in the columns of Longstreet from Deep 
Bottom and Bermuda Hundred, and also the rear- 
guard of Ewell, to which had been assigned the work 
of havoc which I have just described. As soon as his 
army is concentrated, the first objective of Lee is 
Amelia Court-house ; for here Goode's Bridge spans 
the Appomattox, and his only safety lies in reaching 
Burksville, which is at the intersection of the Dan- 
ville with the South-side and Lynchburg Railroad, 
and fifty-two miles from Petersburg. If he fails to 
secure this point, he is forced off from the Danville 
Boad, and can only regain it by a long detour, which 
will expose him to the toils of the pursuer. During 
the night of Sunday, he had reached Chesterfield 
Court-house, having put sixteen miles between him- 
self and Petersburg; and it is said that on Monday 
morning, when Longstreet's corps came up, and he 
was sure of being joined by Ewell, the Confederate 
commander was in gay and exultant spirits, saying to 
those around him, " I have got my army safe out of 
its breastworks ; and, in order to follow me, my enemy 
must abandon his lines, and can derive no further 
benefit either from his railroads or the James River." ^ 
He was unquestionably meditating a prolonged cam- 
paign against Grant dragged from his base, — the same 
which would have been prosecuted if Petersburg had 
yielded to our assault last June ; the same 'which 
Lee had projected during the last month of the siege. 
During Monday, Lee marched to Amelia Court-house, 
where he was overtaken by a calamity as fatal to his 

* Swinton's Army of the Potomac, p. 606. 



462 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

plans as defeat in battle. His soldiers had started 
with but one day's rations in their haversacks ; for 
Lee had sent orders to the chief commissary at Dan- 
ville to run up to Amelia Court-house subsistence and 
ordnance stores for the retreating army. The loaded 
cars had reached Amelia Station on Sunday afternoon ; 
but here an order from Richmond reached the con- 
ductor to bring on his train to the capital, where it 
was needed to transport to safe quarters the personal 
effects of the members of the Confederate cabinet. 
The conductor, therefore, without unloading the food 
and supplies designed for the troops, hurried his cars 
on to Richmond, thus dashing the hopes of Lee, and 
abandoning his army to starvation. He had counted 
upon those tiger-like springs on detachments of 
Grant's army, when it was broken up for the chase ; 
but, in order to achieve this success fully, he must 
hold his entire force in hand. But the loss of rations 
now constrained him to break up his own army into 
fragments, to scour the country for food. Lee was 
therefore obliged to remain at Amelia Court-house 
during Tuesday and Wednesday, which lost him all 
the advantage of his sixteen-mile start, and gave an 
opportunity to Sheridan to make up the gap, which 
he was not slow to improve. On Monday morning. 
Grant instantly forecast the direction, course, and 
limitations of Lee's retreat, and made dispositions for 
its embarrassment and arrest. Sheridan with his 
cavalry was on Sundaj^ night at Ford's station, on the 
same South-side Road which Lee was attempting to 
strike at Burksville ; while the Fifth Corps, now un- 
der command of Griffin, was at Sutherland's, ten 
miles from Petersburg on the same route. 



WHAT DID HE DO IX THE CIVIL ATAR ? 4G3 

Sheridan and Griffin are driven impetuously for- 
ward south of the Appomattox, on a line parallel to 
Lee's retreat along the northern bank, with the de- 
sign of striking the Danville Road below Amelia 
Court-house, to cut off the enemy from Burksville. 
To this force, thus set free for pursuit, Humphreys's 
Second Corps was added, furnished with pontoons, 
and directed to follow in the wake of Sheridan and 
Griffin. On Monday morning, Ord, with the Army 
of the James, was hurried down the South-side Rail- 
road, aimed also at Burksville. Thus the two armies, 
in three parallel lines, were wending forth to the 
south-west, — Lee to strike the South-side Railroad at 
Amelia Court-house for the purpose of reaching 
Burksville ; Sheridan and Griffin to strike the same 
road below Amelia Court-house, for the purpose of 
cutting off Lee from Burksville ; Ord, with the Army 
of the James, to reach Burksville, in case Lee should 
escape from the gripe of Sheridan and Griffin. I 
left Lee at Amelia Court-house on Tuesday ; but he 
moved therefrom promptly in the morning, and 
speedily struck the Danville Railroad. But the delay 
was fatal. Sheridan, who is perfectly inspired by the 
rapture of the chase, and animated with the soul of 
all the mighty hunters from Nimrod down, strikes the 
rowels deep into the flanks of his charger, and rushes 
on the wings of the wind to Jetersville, where he in- 
tercepts the vanguard of the Army of Virginia. He 
flings intrenchments across Lee's line of retreat, and 
challenges an engagement. He was now joined by 
Meade, with the Second and Sixth Corps of the Army 
of the Potomac. As the pursuers had thus placed 



464 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

themselves across the sole path by which the game 
can fly, it remained for the Confederate general, either 
to double, or to break through this armed cordon and 
still pursue his course. The former alternative was 
adopted ; and he marched over the country for Farm- 
ville, which is on the South-side Railroad, twenty-eight 
miles below Jetersville, and eight miles below Burks- 
ville, to which point pursuers and pursued were ori- 
ginally aimed. When it was found that Lee had 
altered the course of his flight, the direction of our 
army was immediately changed. 

The pursuit, which had hitherto assumed the chaiac- 
ter of a race for Burksville, was now transformed into 
a hunt, for the purpose not only of heading, but beat- 
ing up and snaring the prey. The Army of the Po- 
tomac, which is nearly all centred at Jetersville, breaks 
into various directions. I will first follow Sheridan as 
the most enterprising of the hunters. He drops his 
infantry supports, for greater celerity of movement ; 
but the Sixth Corps is still directed to follow, and be- 
friend him if he encounters the enemy. He projects 
Davis Avith a mounted force to Paine's Cross-roads, five 
miles to the north-west, where he strikes a train of 
a hundred and eighty wagons with a cavalry escort. 
The wagons are destroyed; five pieces of artillery 
and a number of prisoners are captured. Growing 
hotter and more furious as- the hunt becomes entan- 
gled, Sheridan, on Thursday morning, pounces upon 
another Confederate wagon-train, with a formidable 
escort both of infantry and cavalry. This is a prize 
which excites all the fury and genius of the excited 
leader. He orders Crook's division to assail the train, 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL Y/AE ? 465 

and, if the escort proves too strong, to hang to it like 
grim death, in order to permit another division to pass 
beyond and assail the train still further on ; and this 
division is, in its turn, instructed to cling with a 
steady grasp, that another division may pass it, till 
some vulnerable point is found. The result for 
which he thus manoeuvred was attained at Sailors' 
Creek, a small tributary to the Appomattox, where 
Custar's division found the weak spot ; and, with the 
assistance of his comrades, who instantly hurried to 
his support, four hundred wagons, with sixteen pieces 
of artillery and many prisoners, were captured. This 
feat was hardly achieved, before Sheridan discovered 
that Swell's entire corps — the Confederate rear-guard 
which had burned Richmond — was following the 
train, and was thus cut off from its line of retreat, 
it was too muscular for Sheridan to handle alone ; but 
he could detain it until the Sixth Corps, which was 
following him, should bring up its infantry. With this 
purpose, he charged Ewell, with Stagg's brigade ; and, 
while this was in progress, the bayonets of the Sixth 
came bristling over a neighboring crest, and the Con- 
federates immediately commenced a retreat. Where- 
upon one division of the Sixth Corps carried the road, 
and put Ewell to flight ; but he continually turned 
upon his pursuers, and delivered such destructive vol- 
leys that another division of the Sixth Corps was 
called in, and the advance was renewed, and the Con- 
federates again repulsed, and driven towards Sailors' 
Creek. The cavalry here environed them ; but Ewell's 
corps was not unmindful of its heritage of glory, and 
resisted with a determination which staggered for an 
so 



466 LIFE OF GENERAL GEAKT. 

instant the veteran line of the Sixth. But now the 
infantry in front, and the cavalry on flank and rear, 
simultaneously charged ; and the heroic rear-guard, 
findinsT themselves surrounded, threw down their arms 
in token of surrender. The captures included the 
entire corps, with Lieut-Gen. Ewell and four general 
officers. 

While Sheridan has been engaged in bagging the 
enemy's rear-guard, Lee, with the main body, has con- 
tinued his retreat during Thursday night, and recrossed 
to the north bank of the Appomattox by bridges in 
the neighborhood of Farmville. His army now suf- 
fered from a famine which can only be conceived by 
those who can recall Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, 
or, what is perhaps a more vivid representation than 
this real portraiture, the imaginary description by De 
Quincey of the dismal flight of the Tartar tribe. Men 
by the thousand drop their arms because they are 
too weak to carry them ; animals suffer even more 
than men ; the grass has not yet sprouted, and bipeds 
and quadrupeds are forced to sustain life on the buds 
and tender branches of the trees, which are just be- 
ginning to shoot from the parent stems. It is hard 
to exaggerate the famished condition of the fugitive 
army ; for the country has already been stripped by 
war, and the clouds of our cavalry effectually debarred 
the detours and expeditions of the foraging parties 
of the foe. It was not until dawn on Friday that 
the Confederate army had succeeded in again reach- 
ing the north bank of the Appomattox. 

Here, while a council of officers were deliberating 
upon the emergencies of their situation, and had 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 4C7 

commissioned Gen. Pendleton to recommend Gen. 
Lee to surrender, the bugles of the hunters upon 
their track were again heard. I left the Second 
Corps at Jetersville, when I turned thence in order 
to follow the sabres of Sheridan. Humphreys was 
directed to pursue, and advance towards Farmville 
by way of Deatonsville ; and, in prosecuting this 
march, he had overtaken the Confederate rear-guard 
at the high bridge over the Appomattox, six miles 
east of Farmville, and had defeated an attempt 
of the enemy to burn the wagon-road bridge, and 
had there secured a crossing over the Appomattox, 
which at this point was unfordable. He found now 
the Army of Northern Virginia intrenched with bat- 
teries on the crest of a hill, covering the stage and 
plank road to Lynchburg. It had vigor enough 
left to repulse an attack upon its flank ; and darkness 
fell upon both belligerents before the assault could 
be renewed. During the night, Lee continued his 
flight. The pursuers follow him with the dawn, 
the Second and Sixth Corps by the north bank of 
the Appomatox, while Sheridan dashes along by the 
south bank, followed by Ord with the Army of the 
James and the Fifth Corps, rallying all his vigor and. 
energy to strike the Southside Railroad at A-p- 
pomattox Station, for the purpose of inflicting upon 
Lee the fatal blow of closing his only outlet to 
Lynchburg ; for his line of retreat is the narrow neck 
of land between the James on the north and the 
Appomattox on the south. Sheridan is thus swoop- 
ing round his flank. Meade, with the two army corps, 
is following his track. On the evening of Saturday, 



468 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

after a furious ride of thirty miles, Sheridan reaches! 
ALppomattox Station. He captures here a third 
wagon-train, which had been sent from Lynchburg 
witii supphes for Lee. He throws his sabres across 
the road, five miles below Appomattox Court-house. 
He resolves to hold his position for the night, with 
the knowledge that the Army of the James will sup- 
port him in the morning, while, at the same time, 
the Army of the Potomac will strike the rear of the 
Confederates. On Sunday morning, the hunt is so 
closed in upon the victims that but two alternatives 
are left to Lee, either to surrender his army, or to 
cut his way through Sheridan's squadrons. It was 
congenial to his nature, and worthy of his antecedents, 
to adopt the bolder expedient. By dawn on Sunday, 
the skeleton of the Army of Virginia is for the last 
time drawn up in battle array, with the wrecks of 
Gordon's battered columns for its inefficient front, 
with all that remains of Longstreet's once puissant 
r'orps for its feeble and attenuated rear ; between the 
two is a debilitated and half-starved mass, too weak 
and famished to bear their arms, shriek their historic 
yell, or wave their tattered banners. Gen. Lee is- 
sued his last battle-order to Gordon, " Cut your way 
through at all hazards." The corps-leader attacks 
with such impetuosity that the cavalrymen, who 
have dismounted to receive the shock, are compelled 
to yield the ground ; but Sheridan directs them to 
retire slowly, delivering their effectual fire, for he 
knew that the Army of the James was near. At 
this critical moment, Gordon abandons hope ; for he 
discerns the serried ranks of the infantry advancing 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 469 

in powerful battle-line. The cavalry feel the pressure 
upon them yielding. The foe sullenly retires. 
Sheridan sounds his bugles to mount, and, at the 
head of his squadrons, deploys on the enemy's left 
flank, to charge between the front and rear of Lee's 
depleted lines. The order " Forward ! " is on his lips, 
when an officer with a white flag is seen advancing 
from the hostile ranks, bearing a letter from the 
Confederate commander. The letter to Lieut.-Gen. 
Grant was delivered to Custar, who was in advance ; 
and it was immediately forwarded to Sheridan, with 
the information that the enemy wished to surrender. 
Sheridan rode over to Appomattox Court-house, and 
met Gordon and Wilcox of the Confederate service. 
They requested a suspension of hostilities pending 
nesiotiations for surrender between the two com- 
manders-in-chie£ " I notified them," says Sheridan, 
" that I desired to prevent the unnecessary eflusion 
of blood; but as there was nothing definitely settled 
in the correspondence, and as an attack had been 
made on my lines with the view to escape, under the 
impression that our force was only cavalry, I must have 
some assurance of an intended surrender. This Gen. 
Gordon gave, by saying that there was no doubt of 
the surrender of Gen. Lee's army. I then separated 
from him, with an agreement to meet these officers 
again in half an hour at Appomattox Court-house. 
At the specified time, in company with Gen. Ord, 
who commanded the infantry, I again met this officer, 
also Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet, and received from them 
the same assurance ; and hostilities ceased until the 
arrival of Lieut.-Gen. Grant" It was hardly an hour 



470 LIFE OF GENERAL GE'ANT. 

since the order was given to Gordon, " Cut your way 
throu"li at all hazards ; " and there can be no reason- 
able doubt that the sudden change in the purpose 
of Gen. Lee was entirely due to the appearance of 
Ord in his front. 

I have been unwilling to interrupt the narrative of 
the chase, by giving an account of the correspondence 
which has been passing between the two generals-in- 
chief since Friday last. " Feeling," says Gen. Grant, 
" that Lee's chance of escape was utterly hopeless, I 
addressed him the following communication from 
Farmville : " — 

April 7, 1SG5. 
General, — The result of the last week must convince you of 
the hopelessness of further resistance, on the part of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard 
it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further 
effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion 
of the Confederate-States army known as the Army of Northern 
Virginia. U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. 

Gen. R. E. Lee. 

Early on Saturday morning, before leaving Farm- 
ville, Grant received the following reply : — 

April 7, 1865. 
General, — I have received your note of this date. Though 
not entertaining the opinion you express on the hopelessness of 
further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I 
reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and 
therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you 

will offer on condition of its surrender. 

R. E. Lee, General. 
Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Grant. 

Li answer to this communication, Grant wrote Gen. 
Lee as follows : — 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 471 

April 8, 1865. 
General, — Your note of last evening, in reply to mine of 
same date, asking the condition on which I will accept the surren- 
der of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply, 
I would say, that, peace being my great desire, there is but one con- 
dition I would insist upon ; namely, that the men and officers sur- 
rendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the 
Government of the United States, until properly exchanged. I will 
meet you, or will designate officers to meet any officers you may 
name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the 
purpose of arranging definitely the terms- upon which the surren- 
der of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received. 

U. S. Graijt, Lieutenant-General, 
Gen. R. E. Lee. 

After the reception of this letter, Gen. Lee's pros- 
pects had improved : he had beaten off Humphreys's 
attempt to carry his intrenched Knes, he had left the 
Army of the Potomac behind him by a night's march^ 
he knew nothing of Sheridan's detour round his/ront^ 
and the vision in which he had lono; indulo-ed, of a 
campaign waged at a distance from the James, began 
to assume the semblance of reality. Though fleeing 
every night, and harassed by pursuit and famine, his 
spirits had recovered their elasticity: when he in- 
dicted the following epistle he was as sanguine and 
determined as when he gave his final order to 
Gordon : — 

Apeil 8, 1865. 
General, — I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In 
mine of yesterday I did not intend to propose the surrender of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposi- 
tion. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call 
for the surrender of this army ; but, as the restoration of peace 
should be the sole object of all, I desired to know Avhether your 
proposals would lead to that end. I cannot, therefore, meet you 



472 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

witli a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia ; but, as 
far as your proposal may affect the Confederate-States forces under 
my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be 
pleased to meet you at ten, a.m., to-morrow, on the old stage-road 
to Richmond, between the picket lines of the two armies. 

R. E. Lee, General. 
Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Gkant. 

To this Gen. Grant replied, — 

Apkil 9, 1865. 
General, — Your note of yesterday is received. I have no 
authority to treat on the subject of peace. The meeting proposed 
for ten, a.m., to-day, could lead to no good. I will state, however, 
general, that I am equally anxious for peace with yourself; and the 
whole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which 
peace can be had are well imderstood. By the South laying down 
their arms, they Avill hasten that most desirable event, save thou- 
sands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet 
destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our difficulties may be settled 
without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, «S:c., 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. 
Gen. R. E. Lee. 

After transmitting this letter, Gen. Grant immedi- 
ately started to join Sheridan's column south of Ap- 
pomattox Court-house; for he had received a despatch 
from that officer inciting him to press on with all speed, 
that there was now no means of escape, for the enemy 
had finally reached the " last ditch." While spurring 
on to assume direction of affairs in front of Lee, Grant 
received this letter from the Confederate commander, 
which had been delivered to Custar by the flag of 
truce : — 

April 9, 1S65. 
General, — I received your note of this morning on the picket 
line, whither I had come to meet you, and ascertain definitely what 
terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAB ? 473 

to tlie surrender of this army. I now ask an interview, in accord- 
ance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that 

purpose. 

E. E. Lee, General. 

Lieut.-Gen. Q. S. Grant. 

Grant forthwith penned on his saddle, upon a leaf 
torn from his tablets, the following reply : — 

April 9, 1865. 
Gen. R. E. Lee, Commanding C. S. A. : — 

Your noteof this date is but this moment, 11.59, A.M., received. 
In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and 
Lynchburg Road to the Farmville and Lynchburg Road, I am, at 
this writing, about four miles west of Walter's Church, and will 
push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice 
sent to me on this road where you wish the interview to take place 
will meet me. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General. 

These notes produced the memorable interview 
between the two commanders at the dwelling of 
Mr. Wilmer McLean, near Appomattox Court-house. 
Expect nothing dramatic or theatrical in this momen- 
tous scene. I have already iterated and reiterated, 
that there is nothing sensational in Grant's uttcsrance, 
manners, address: he uniformly despises show and 
parade, and dispenses with all superfluous ceremony. 
In addition to these plain and straightforward habits, 
which of themselves would have precluded all histri- 
onic and pictorial effects, he was influenced by the 
generous motive of avoiding any thing which would 
wound the feelings, or add to the humiliation, of an 
accomplished and honorable foe. No parade could 
have added to the import of this thrilling interview 
between great antagonists who had won each other's 



474 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

respect in protracted warfare, and who had now met 
to sheathe the swords of more than a million warriors, 
and pacify contending nations. 

Melodramatic display, and sentimental harangues 
and utterances, were as foreign to Gen. Lee's nature as 
to Grant's ; and the addresses and oratorical efforts of 
the one are hardly shorter or more sententious than 
those of the other. One of our officers who was 
present on this occasion says of Gen. Lee, "His 
demeanor was that of a thoroughly possessed gentle- 
man who had a very disagreeable duty to perform, 
but was determined to get through it as well and as 
soon as he could." Col. Marshall, one of his aides, 
was the only officer who accompanied him. 

In describing the interview . between Grant and 
Pemberton at Vicksburg, I gave an extract from a 
letter which I had written to my family, after hear- 
ing from Gen. Grant's own lips a description of the 
scene. On the same occasion, he sketched the meet- 
ing between Gen. Lee and himself at the house of 
Mr. McLean. It was owing to the courtesy of my 
friend Mr. Paul S. Forbes of New York, that this 
pleasure was afforded me. After the passage of the 
bill creating the grade of general by the House of 
Representatives, Mr. Forbes honored me with an 
invitation to meet Gen. Grant at dinner. The party 
consisted of Gen. Grant, Gen. Parke, Gen. Ingals, 
and the Hon. Henry J. Raymond, Hon. John A. 
Griswold, Mr. James Tisdale, librarian of the House, 
Mr. Forbes, and myself With the letter before me, 
I transcribe Gen. Grant's language, as I committed it 
to paper after my return to my room : " I "felt some 



WHAT DID HE DO IjS" THE CIVIL WAR ? 475 

embarrassment in the prospect of meeting Gen. Lee. 
I had not seen him since he was Gen. Scott's chief-of- 
staff in Mexico ; and, in addition to the respect I enter- 
tained for him, the duty which I had to perform was 
a disagreeable one, and I wished to get through it as 
soon as possible. When I reached Appomattox Court- 
house, I had ridden that morning thirty-sevCn miles. 
I was in my campaign clothes, covered with dust and 
mud ; I had no sword ; I was not even well mounted, 
for I rode (turning to Gen. Ingals, who was present) 
one of Ingals's horses. I found Gen. Lee in a fresh 
suit of Confederate gray, with all the insignia of his 
rank, and at his side the splendid dress-sword which 
had been given to him by the State of Virginia. We 
shook hands. He was exceedingly courteous in his 
address, and we seated ourselves at a deal table 
in Mr. McLean's front room. We talked of two 
of the conditions of surrender, which had been left 
open by our previous correspondence, one of which 
related to the ceremonies which were to be observed 
on the occasion ; and when I disclaimed any desire 
to have any parade, but said I should be con- 
tented with the delivery of arms to my ofl&cers, and 
with the proper signature and authentication of 
paroles, he seemed to be greatly pleased. When I 
yielded the other point, that the officers should retain 
their side-arms and private baggage and horses, his 
emotions of satisfaction were plainly visible. We 
soon reduced the terms to writing. We parted with 
the same courtesies with which we had met. It 
seemed to me that Gen. Lee evinced a feeling of 
satisfaction and relief when the business was finished. 



476 LIFE OP GENERAL GRANT. 

I immediately mounted Ingals's horse, returned to 
Gen. Sheridan's headquarters, and did not again 
present myself to the Confederate commander." 

The documents signed at Mr. McLean's house were 
as follows : — 

Appomattox Court House, Va., April 9, 1865. 
General, — In accordaace with the substance of my letter to 
you of the 8th instant, I propose to receive the surrender of the Army 
of Northern Virginia on the following terms ; to wit, rolls of all the 
oflBcers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to 
an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such 
officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their 
individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of 
the United States until properly exchanged, and each company or 
regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their 
commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be 
parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by 
me to receive them. This will not emibrace the side-arms of the 
officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done, each 
officer and man will be allowed to return to his home, not to be 
disturbed by United-States authority so long as they observe their 
paroles, and the laws in force where they may reside. 

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant- General. 
Gen. K. E. Lee. 

Headquartres Army of Northern Virgijjia, April 9, 1805. 
General, — I received your letter of this date, containing the 
terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as 
proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those 
expressed in your letter of the 8th instant, they are accepted. I 
will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipula- 
tions into effect. 

R. E. Lee, General. 
Lieut.-Gen. U. S. Grant. 

Thus was the act engrossed which disbanded and 
disarmed the Army of Northern Virginia, relegated 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAE ? 477 

its veteran officers and soldiers to the ranks of peace- 
ful citizens, and virtually ended hostilities, and de- 
stroyed the Confederacy. The command of Griffin, 
and McKenzie's cavalry, were designated to remain 
at Appomattox Court-house until the paroles of the 
surrendered army were complete. On the 12th of 
April the Army of Northern Virginia marched by 
divisions to a spot designated by the commissioners, 
where they stacked their arms, and laid their stand- 
ards on the earth.-^ 

The critics of Grant's military methods cannot erase 
from the record this grand result, while they call 
upon us to admire the exact accordance with military 
theories of the operations of other leaders, which 
resulted only in discomfiture and the prolongation of 
the war. If we are compelled to choose between 
scientific defeat and unscientific triumph, theie can 
be no doubt to which the preference ;^hould be given 
in this utilitarian era. After every deduction is 
allowed from the merits of Grant which criticism 
claims, there still remains a tremendous balance in 
his favor, for having subdued armed resistance to the 
national authority. 

Accordino; to the maxims of Jomini, the war of an 
invader against a people making means of resistance 
out of every thing, with each individual combatant 
and non-combatant conspiring against the common 
foe, "is so disastrous to the invader that he must 
mevitably yield after a time ; " and he adds, that " his 
difficulties become insurmountable, when the country 
is difficult." Grant encounters both of the conditions 

1 The commissioners of prisoners report that 27,805 were paroled. 



478 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

which this accomplished theorist pronounces incom- 
patible with triumph ; and his final success can, there- 
fore, be only regarded as a marvellous achievement, 
unwarranted by military principles. No country 
ever presented greater natural obstacles than the 
region through which the Wilderness campaign was 
conducted; no people were ever more universally 
united against an invader than the population of 
Virginia. There is not an instance, up to the final 
overthrow of Lee, where any advantage was derived 
from the sympathy, either of the white or the col- 
ored residents of the country. 

Superior odds in numbers and the sacrifice of life 
were indispensable prerequisites of victory on such 
a field and in such a warfare. It cannot be success- 
fully claimed that the greatest warriors of the race 
'jould have accomplished it with a smaller army, or 
with a less slaughter of men, considering the unsur- 
passed prestige of the enemy at the outset, the 
physical entanglements of the terrain, and the im- 
provised ramparts of earth and logs behind which 
the Confederates waged every battle in this remark- 
able campaign. The march from the Rapidan to the 
James was a continuous assault upon these rude 
but strong breastworks, where veteran infantry was 
posted, equipped with repeating arms, and rifled 
artillery of immense range sweeping their front ; and 
where the defender could lie in security, without real 
or chimerical cause for alarm, awaiting the approach 
of the assailants predestined to overthrow. If 
against such advantages a temporary success was 
gained, it only threw the enemy back a few hundred 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAK ? 479 

yards, behind other defences of similar character, 
where the assailants were again constrained to repeat 
the same disheartening experiment. The records of 
warfare furnish no parallel for such a campaign : we 
can only infer the odds which would be required by 
military rules to overcome such disadvantage of posi- 
tion from the three-fold numerical preponderance 
which the most adventurous masters of the art have 
always demanded as an element of success in storm- 
ing operations. The husbandry of troops in such 
circumstances, against an enemy prodigal of the lives 
of his own soldiers, would have been at once submis- 
sion to defeat. The losses which a general was 
justified in incurring can only be measured by a 
calculation based upon the maximum of casualties 
which are allotted to a storming party, multiplied 
by the number of days in which the Army of the 
Potomac was engaged in this most terrible business 
of their profession. It should also be taken into the 
account, that the losses which Grant inflicted upon 
the foe, in delivering these expensive assaults, put an 
end to offensive operations upon Lee's part, and re- 
duced the suppression of the Rebellion to a mere 
question of time. 

Even those who withhold approval from Grant's 
method of attack concede to him surpassing skill as 
a manoeuvrer, in his various flanking movements. 
His change of base to the south of the James was a 
brilliant execution of the most difiicult feat known to 
the military art. No. officer on record, it is univer- 
sally admitted, ever exhibited greater persistency of 
purpose or tenacity of will ; while botli friend and foe 



480 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRANT. 

concede that bis pursuit of Lee was conducted with 
prodigious energy and masterly skill. 

It should not be forgotten, that, while Grant was 
bearing on his sho alders the tremendous load of the 
military operations I have just described, he was 
supervising and directing, in addition, tbe movement 
of eight hundred thousand soldiers, scattered over 
the remainder of the immense theatre of war. While 
handling the three armies immediately concerned in 
the combined movement against Richmond, he must 
take the responsibility of determining whether Sher- 
man shall essay that unparalleled march to the sea, 
finally advising him, after a protracted interchange of 
telegrams, '•' If you are satisfied the trip to the sea- 
coast can be made, holding the line of the Tennessee 
firmly, you can make it." The weight of Hood's raid 
against Thomas oppresses him as much as those 
protracted and painful expeditions by which he was 
prolonging to the left the investment of Petersburg. 
The entanglements of the Fort Fisher expedition, the 
panic at Washington caused by Early's raid ; the dis- 
aster of Banks at the Red River ; Forrest's guerilla war- 
fare in East Tennessee; Canby's adventure against Mo- 
bile ; Schofield's advance into North Carolina ; Steele, 
Rosecrans, and Curtis in the wilds of Arkansas and 
Kansas, — constantly demand his wise and comprehen- 
sive oversight. The greatest campaign, either of Napo- 
leon or Frederick, never imposed upon either of those 
foremost men in war greater care or anxiety than Gen. 
Grant endured, while an excited nation was holding 
him responsible for the momentous interests of his 
own particular line of operation. 



WHAT DID HE DO IN THE CIVIL WAR ? 481 

" "What did he do in the Civil "War ? " is summarily 
answered by the headings which I have appended to 
the chapters devoted to this part of my theme. The 
methods which he adopted for the performance of 
these mighty tasks are detailed in my narrative of 
wonderful sieges, marches, and engagements : their 
result, and contribution to the gradual overthrow of 
the Rebellion, are succinctly summed up at the close 
of each chapter. I do not find upon reflection, that 
I have any thing to add to the views already ex- 
pressed upon each of the leading exploits of Grant's 
military career ; and, so far as I am concerned, I must 
submit his capacity as a general to the verdict of his 
countiymen, upon the record I have already present- 
ed. Whatever mistakes of omission or commission 
he might have made during the progress of the most 
complicated and difficult martial labors, he was in no 
instance finally baffled, but, with a spirit invincible, 
persisted in their prosecution until all were at length 
crowned with overwhelming triumph. No one asserts 
that he is a military paragon. I claim for him no 
infallibility : he himself concedes serious errors both 
in plan and execution. No man certainly can dissent 
from his own modest avowal, in his own simple 
language, " All I can say is, that what I have done has 
been done conscientiously, to the best of my ability, 
and in what I conceived to be for the best interests 
of the whole country." 

81 



CHAPTER XV. 

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 
[April, 1865 -December, 1867.] 

MR. ROEBUCK, in his history of the Whig ad- 
ministration of England in 1830, observes, in 
reference to the Duke of "Wellington, "No man can 
be a great soldier unless he possess great adminis- 
trative talent ; and this talent is more likely to be 
brought forth and fostered by the business of war 
than by the management of cases at nisi prius ; yet, 
because of the habit of speaking, the lawyer is deemed 
capable of governing; while the soldier, whose life is 
spent in action and not in talk, is considered unversed 
in what are called the civil affairs of state." 

It has always seemed to me that this remark rested 
on sound reason. There is but little difference, 
theoretically, between the qualities required for the 
successful administration of civil government and 
the successful management of an army. Both 
governments are chiefly concerned with the execu- 
tion of law and the control of men, not by arbitrary 
will, but by rule and regulation; and the distinction 
between the two is rather of form than of essence. 
To wisely rule a state or an empire, and to trium- 
phantly conduct a campaign, the same comprehen- 



482 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPERIENCE. 483 

siveness of view, firmness, industry, knowledge of 
men, mastery of details, and devotion to the great 
interests in hand, are imperatively required. 

The lesson thus derived from the identity of quali- 
ties which enter into the composition of a successful 
ruler and a successful general is confirmed by the 
experience of mankind from the days of Joshua and 
David to those of Napoleon and Wellington ; from 
which it appears that the men valiant in battle, the 
mighty captains, the redeemers of the captivity of a 
people, have been the renowned emperors, magis- 
trates, ministers, and presidents in peace. No more 
signal illustration can be found than the examples 
of "Washington and Jackson, who illustrated in civil 
administration the same qualities which delivered 
the country in war. The two great parties which 
have hitherto divided the nation, have both affected 
to be jealous of intrusting civil authority to men 
habituated to war; but both have cheerfully accepted 
military candidates, and always disarmed their ap- 
prehensions, upon the demand of party expediency. 
A bad man, although a good general, may make a 
bad ruler, — as a bad man, though a good lawyer, may 
make a bad ruler ; but it will be hard to find an in- 
stance of a man with the public good afc heart, and 
with genuine love of country, who has not been im- 
proved in qualifications to rule an empire or govern 
a state by experience in conducting large military 
operations. From the time, when, as a colonel, he 
clears his guard-house in the morning to the time 
when, a general-in-chief, he is final arbiter on ques- 
tions of military justice, he is continually trained 



484 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 



in the government of men. From the time he 
becomes the father of the regiment till the time 
he conducts the most important campaign, he is en- 
o'ao:efl in themes and activities which are closely 
analofrous to those which test the capacity of civil 
rulers. If you follow a general through protracted 
and complicated operations, you cannot fail to dis- 
cern that he is as much tried by army administration 
as by sieges and engagements. 

If from successful military administration in general 
we are authorized to presume executive ability in 
civil affairs, the presumption is much stronger when 
.such success was won in a war so unique and pe- 
culiar as our civil war. The administration of our 
great military districts or departments was far from 
being purely military, — civil and military functions 
were blended in the general at their head ; the 
qualities which equipped a civil ruler were as im- 
periously demanded as the qualities which constitute 
a warrior ; the authority exercised was partly under 
municipal, partly under martial law : the experience 
acquired was as serviceable for a statesman as for 
a general. The district of South-eastern Missouri, 
to which Grant was first assigned, embraced loyal, 
semi-loyal, and neutral territory, — citizens who had 
never wavered in their allegiance, armed neutrals, 
and full-blooded rebels. To each division under his 
jurisdiction he must apply a different code ; and his 
authority over the mixed population within it was 
of every degree, from perfect nullity to absolute 
dominion. In the part embraced within the State 
of Illinois, he neither claimed nor exercised control of 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 485 

tlie citizen, but confined himself entirely to the 
government of his own troops. In Kentucky, part 
rebel, and part loyal, he was obliged to use the 
nicest discrimination ; and the rule which he adopted 
in this debatable land exemplified his wisdom as a 
magistrate, for he enforced State laws when they 
were not incompatible with the constitution of the 
United States, the laws of Congress, or general or- 
ders. He avoided all unnecessary interference with 
local courts. He reserved military support until it 
was invoked by the State magistrates. When an 
offence was not against martial law, or committed by 
a soldier, he uniformly remanded the criminal to the 
civil tribunal. 

The parts of Tennessee which were held by Con- 
federate troops, or were in manifest alliance with 
Rebellion, he was obliged to rule by that law which 
has been correctly defined as " the will of the con- 
queror;" but, even when governing by its mandates, 
he was controlled by such equitable principles, and 
exercised power with so much justice and leniencj^, 
that the inhabitants themselves accepted his adminis- 
tration as a grateful relief from the reign of anarchy 
and violence which it effectually subverted. As a 
military governor, he is not only above fault, but 
above suspicion. No one has accused him of any 
unconscionable or wanton acts of malversation and 
rapine ; no one has even intimated that ill-gotten 
gain has clung to his spotless palm. Extortion, em- 
bezzlement, bribes, are not connected with the name 
of Grant. While so many wdio served in similar 
positions have been made the butt of warranted or 



486 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

unwarranted accusation, his singular immunity from 
such charges is conclusive proof that his hands were 
clean, his proconsular career honorable, and his integ- 
rity unimpeached. His voluminous order-books, e:!?- 
tending through three years of military rule, furnish 
abundant evidence of the consideration with which 
he treats non-combatant rebels, and of the severity 
with which he punishes the marauding or unjustifia- 
ble acts of his own soldiers. I also find from the 
same record, that trial and conviction immediately 
follow offences against these wise and humane regu 
lations. History presents no example of a com- 
mander, in an enemy's country, who administers mar- 
tial law with more generosity towards the conquered, 
or with more justice, gentleness, and forbearance. 
Can any better criterion of administrative wisdom be 
found than this control of rebellious and anarchical 
communities, without cruel and sanguinary punish- 
ments? Can there be any reasonable apprehension, 
that, as a civil ruler, he will transcend any constitu- 
tional limitation, when, with no restraint upon his 
authority but his own will, and wielding in full pleni- 
tude absolute dominion, he has uniformly governed 
public enemies with moderation and forbearance ? 

A general-in-chief, in hostile territories, is pre-emi- 
nently the executive officer of that great code. which 
is known as Public Law, or the Law of Nations. A 
civil war, as absolutely as a war inter genies, confers 
upon the party claiming to be sovereign full belliger- 
ent rights, and entails upon the opposite party all 
the liabilities of a perfect war. It was for the in- 
terest of the Confederates to secure from the national 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 487 

Government, through its constituted authorities, some 
recognition of their rights as belligerents, that they 
might command the respect of foreign nations, and 
entitle themselves to all the ameliorating provisions 
of the international code. Now, one step towards 
creating a state of public war is for the insurgent 
to obtain from the sovereign a cartel for the ex- 
change of prisoners ; for this is an acknowledgment 
of a belligerent right. In the operations which pre- 
ceded the battle of Belmont, the Confederate generals 
at Columbus had inveigled Col. W. H. L. Wallace 
into an agreement for an exchange of prisoners ; but, 
as this ofl&cer was merely in subordinate command, 
the concession carried with it no implied sanction by 
the Government. After this battle. Gen. Polk delib- 
erMely plotted to trepan Grant into an authoritative 
admission of this belligerent right. He sent to him 
a flag of truce, offering an exchange of prisoners in 
the name of the Confederate Government. Grant 
forthwith replied, "I can make no exchange. I 
recognize no Southern Confederacy, but will commu- 
nicate with higher authorities for their views." 

By the international code, captives from the enemy 
are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. When, 
in process of time, the national Government had so 
far acknowledged the rebels as belligerents that an 
exchange of prisoners was authorized, the Confederate 
officers were required by general orders from Rich- 
mond, to turn over to the civil courts, to be dealt with 
according to the black code of the slave States, all 
neo-rocs captured in arms. Grant was not unmindful 
in this emergency that he was chief executive of 



488 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

international law; for he immediately informed the 
Confederate commander in Louisiana that he should 
require its strict observance. He wrote to him in 
these terms, when he heard that a white captain and 
some negro soldiers, captured at Milliken's Bend, had 
been hung : " I feel no inclination to retaliate for the 
offences of irresponsible persons; but, if it is the polic}'' 
of any general intrusted with the coramand of troops, 
to show no quarter, or to punish with death prisoners 
taken in battle, I will accept the issue. It may be, 
you propose a different line of policy towards black 
troops and otiicers commanding them to that prac- 
tised towards white troops. If so, I can assure you 
that these colored troops are regularly mustered into 
the service of the United States. The Government, 
and all officers under the Government, are bound to 
give the same protection to these troops that they do 
to any other troops." 

It was as early as August, 18G2, nearly one month 
before the proclamation of emancipation, that Gen. 
Grant announced, with the foresight of a genuine 
statesman, and in terms equally fearless and distinct, 
that slavery must be destroyed before liberty could 
be saved. lie was at Vicksburg in this summer, upon 
a reconnoissance, after the detachment from Gen. 
Butler's arm}- had abandoned the siege. The following 
remarkable communication bears date, '• A^icksburg, 
Aug. 30, 1862," and is addressed to Hon. E. B. 
Washburne : " The people of the North need not 
quarrel over the institution of slavery. What Vice- 
President Stephens acknowledges the corner-stone of 
the Confederacy is already knocked out. Slavery is 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPEEIENCB. 489 

already dead, and cannot be resurrected. It would 
take a standing army to maintain slavery in the 
South if we were to make peace to-day, guaranteeing 
to the South all their former constitutional privileges. 
I never was an Abolitionist, not even what could be 
called anti-slavery: but I try to judge fairly and 
honestly ; and it became patent to my mind early in 
the Rebellion that the North and South could never 
live at peace with each other except as one nation, 
and that without slavery. As anxious as I am to see 
peace established, I would not, therefore, be willing to 
see any settlement until this question is forever 
settled." 

When Grant entered upon the administration of 
affairs at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, he found a 
population of five or six thousand souls, exempt from 
all the control of law, without courts, without magis- 
trates, no protection to property, no security to indus- 
try, no encouragement to trade, with none of those 
wise provisions by which the " state's collected will," in 
ten thousand ways, subordinates the interests of the 
individual to the general welfare of society. If there 
could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows^ 
if the victims of justice could live again and found a 
community, they would, however loth, soon find them- 
selves obliged to make that justice under which they 
fell the fundamental law of the state. They would 
discern that it was for their own interest to make 
others respect, and they would therefore soon pay 
some respect themselves to, the obligations of good 
faith.^ To this city, handed over to crime and misrule, 

1 Fisher Ames's Works. 



490 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

Grant instantly recalled long-banished justice. From 
this chaos, he evoked law and order. He protected all 
the employments and pursuits of the peaceful citizen. 
He administered law between man and man, and 
maintained the rights of property and of personal 
security by his provost courts. Life and limb were 
for once safe in Vicksburg. The extortion of pilots 
had almost closed the navigation of the Mississippi 
and its tributaries ; and he issued in general orders a 
code for the regulation of this monopoly, which was 
of inestimable benefit both to the government and 
the governed. He extended, in a word, over this 
insubordinate city the aegis of a deliverer, rather than 
the sword of a conqueror. 

While engaged in recalling the habits and msti- 
tutions of civilization to a neighborhood which had 
long been the chosen haunt of vice and crime, he 
was invited by the secretary of the treasury to give 
his views upon the intricate question of reopening 
trade with the rebellious States which had been par- 
tially subjugated. "I find," says Mr. Chase, in a 
letter addressed to Grant at this period, "that a 
rigorous line within districts occupied by our military 
forces, beyond which no cotton or other produce can 
be brought, and within which no trade can be carried 
on, gives rise to serious, and to some apparently well- 
founded, complaints." The secretary consulted Grant 
upon the propriety "of substituting bonds, to be 
given by all persons receiving trade-permits, for the 
riirorous lines which were the boundaries of trade 
and traffic." Grant was decidedly opposed to the 
policy of opening trade in the manner indicated, and 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 491 

responded to the project of Mr. Chase in the follow- 
ing terms : " No matter what the restrictions thrown 
around trade, if any whatever is allowed, it will be 
made the means of supplying the enemy with all 
they want. Restrictions, if lived up to, make trade 
unprofitable ; and hence none but dishonest men go 
into it. I will venture that no honest man has made 
money in West Tennessee in the last year, whilst 
many fortunes have been made there during that 
time. The people in the Mississippi Valley are now 
nearly subjugated. Keep trade out but for a few 
months, and I doubt not but what the work of subju- 
gation will be so complete, that trade can be opened 
freely with the States of Arkansas, Louisiana, and 
Mississippi. iVb theory of my own will ever stand 
in the way of my executing in good faith any order 
I may receive from those in authority over me; but 
my position has given me an opportunity of seeing 
what could not be known by persons away from the 
scene of war, and I venture, therefore, great caution 
in opening trade with rebels." He adds upon the 
same theme, in a letter to the secretary of war, 
" If trade is opened under any general rule, all sorts 
of dishonest men will engage in it, taking any oath 
or obligation necessary to secure the privilege. 
Smugo-ling will all at once commence, as it did at 
Memphis, Helena, and every other place where trade 
has been allowed within the disloyal States ; and the 
armed enemy will be enabled to procure from North- 
ern markets every article they require." 

In the foregoing sentence (which I have italicised) 
in the letter to Secretary Chase, the "mere warrior," 



492 LIFE OF GENEKAL GEAKT. 

from the instincts of common sense and fidelity to 
duty, enunciates the true rule for an executive offi- 
cer, whether civil or military. It is a rule which 
Andrew Johnson never learned in all his varied ex- 
perience in civil life, from village alderman to presi- 
dent. If he had but known and heeded Grant's 
simple maxim, he would have saved himself from 
the obloquy of impeachment, and his country from 
the immeasurable calamity of a chief magistrate 
who arrogated the right of determining for himself 
w^hat laws he would execute, and what he would 
refuse either to obey or enforce. In the assumption 
by a State of the right to nullify a law of Congress 
was the germ of secession, rebellion, and war : if we 
have wrested from the president a similar usurpation 
by the peaceful processes provided in the Constitu- 
tion, w^e owe renewed thanks to the framers of that 
instrument, who provided a mode for the deposition 
of faithless rulers without destroying the framework 
and foundations of government. In a crisis like that 
which is now pending, it is a consolation to know 
that the general of the army will be warped by '• no 
theory of my own " in the discharge of his appointed 
duties. 

The generous terms which Grant magnanimously 
offered to Lee are now conceded to have been dictat- 
ed by the forecast of a statesman ; for they virtually 
disarmed the Confederacy, and were accepted by all 
its organized forces from the Appomattox to the Rio 
Grande. • Nor was there le!?s administrative wisdom 
in his unostentatious mode of conducting a ceremony 
sufficiently humiliating to a worthy foe, when unat- 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 493 

tended with those open proffers of homage, and ab- 
ject tokens of subjugation, which but slightly allevi- 
ate to a sensitive enemy the barbarous custom of 
passing under the yoke. It contributed vastly to the 
pacification of the country ; and Pollard is a truthful 
exponent of Southern ideas when he thus speaks of 
the behavior of Grant at this closing scene, "The 
Federal commander behaved with a magnanimity and 
decorum that must ever be remembered to his credit, 
even by those who disputed his reputation in other 
respects, and denied his claims to great generalship. 
He had with remarkable facility accorded honorable 
and liberal terms to the vanquished army. He did 
nothing to dramatize the surrender; he made no 
triumphal entry into Richmond ; he avoided all those 
displays of triumph so dear to the Northern heart ; 
he spared every thing that might wound the feelings 
or imply the humiliation of a vanquished foe. There 
were no indecent exultations, no ' sensation/ no 
shows : he received the surrender of his adversary 
with every courteous recognition due an honorable 
enemy, and conducted the closing scenes with as 
much simplicity as possible." ^ 

The surrender of Lee was universally regarded as 
deliverance from war, and Grant as the deliverer. 
Peace jubilees and solemn thanksgivings were im- 
mediately celebrated throughout the loyal North, and 
the name of Grant unconsciously blended in the 
oblations which grateful hearts offered to Heaven. 
The secretary of war forthwith issued an 6rder to 
the headquarters of every army and department, 

1 Pollard's Lost Cause, p. 712. 



494 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

and to every fort and arsenal in the Union, to fire a 
salute of two hundred guns. He instantly des- 
patched to the lieutenant-general the following tele- 
gram : " Thanks be to Almighty God for the great 
victory with which he has this day crowned you and 
the gallant armies under your command ! The thanks 
of this department, and of the Government, and of the 
people of the United States, — their reverence and 
honor have been deserved, — will be rendered to you, 
and the brave and gallant officers and soldiers of your 
army, for all time." 

Seldom was such an opportunity offered to a " mere 
warrior " for the gratification of unhallowed ambition. 
When we consider that an aspiring commander-in- 
chief might have deified himself, on an occasion which 
elicited the unbounded enthusiasm of his country- 
men and attracted the gaze of the civilized world, 
and by monopolizing the nation's gratitude, and 
humoring the antipathies of hostile sections, might 
have indefinitely prolonged the dominion of the 
sword, the self-abnegation of Grant at this crisis rises 
to the full height of that exalted patriotism which 
has been exhibited only by the most illustrious of the 
race. So upright, by universal consent, was Grant's 
character, that, amid all the unnatural suspicion and 
distrust bred by the feverish condition of the public 
mind, not a man was found who could suspect him of 
base and sinister motives. The merit of " putting aside 
the kingly crown," for which even the Father of his 
Country has been eulogized, was never lisped as one 
of Grant's claims to the homage of mankind ; because 
the idea was never harbored, that a temptation to 



ADMINISTKATIVE EXPERIENCE. 495 

assume it could possibly enter his modest and unam- 
bitious soul. It seems to me, that not the least 
conspicuous merit of the man is, that he never was 
imagined to be guilty of the thought of selfish 
aggrandizement. If it is not a qualification, rare as it 
is admirable, for eminent civil position, then the moral 
drawn from the unconscionable ambition of " mere 
warriors" should be erased from our political 
homilies. 

Instead, however, of fortifying his power, enjoying 
his triumph, or soliciting an ovation from his exultant 
countrymen, he neither enters Richmond, nor looks 
at the works which had so long withstood his com- 
binations ; but hastens to Washington, and immures 
himself with the secretary of war, for the purpose 
of relieving the nation of the burden of supporting 
the army. On the 9th, Lee surrendered ; on the 
11th, Grant had recommended the administrative 
measure of great significance wdiich was promulged 
by Mr. Stanton on the morning of the 12th. It 
terminated drafting and recruiting for our army, as 
well as the purchase of arms and provisions ; it an- 
nounced that the number of our general and staff 
ofS.cers would be speedily reduced, and all military 
restriction on commerce and trade removed forth- 
with. Never in conducting a campaign, or pursuing 
an enemy, was the " mere warrior " more prompt 
than in razeeing his own importance, disbanding the 
army, and relieving the taxation of the groaning 
country. 

While Grant was engaged in this noble work of 
remanding the armed milHon to peaceful life, and 



496 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

tranquillizing an ensanguined land, he was arrested 
by the most frightful episode in our history. He 
was himself marked for slaughter, and assigned to 
the da^cii^er of one of that band of Thu2fs who aimed 
to arrest the operation of the Government by the 
slaughter of all the functionaries upon whom its 
perpetuity depended. He himself escaped from 
death, or from a murdeious assault, by being called 
from Washington upon the business of his command. 
He would cheerfully have given his own life in ex- 
change for that of the guileless chief-magistrate, who 
had befriended him from the outset of his military 
career, and warded off many a venomous shaft from 
malignant calumniators ; but such was not the decree 
of Heaven. Abraham Lincoln's work was finished 
when, miheralded and almost unattended, leading his 
little son by the hand, he walked into the streets of 
humiliated Richmond, tendering to the unrepentant 
prodigals almost unconditional restoration to their 
fathers' homes. If upon that auspicious morn the 
crowning benediction of peace had descended upon 
him, he might have well wished to die. What more 
could he ask for on earth ? Assailed by the strongest 
conspiracy that ever threatened a nation's life, after 
a four years' struggle, his triumph over it was com- 
plete and overwhelming, conquering liberty for a 
class, and national existence for a people. Was not 
this honor enough for one man ? He had survived 
ridicule ; he had outlived detraction and abuse ; he 
had secured the commendation of the world for 
purity of purpose, constancy in disaster, clemency in 
triumph, and the praise even of his armed foes for 



ADISHNISTEATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 497 

gentleness and mercy. In times more troubled, he 
had administered government with more ability than 
Cavonr, and war with more success than Napoleon 
III. He had paled the glory of Hastings in pre- 
serving an empire, and had earned comparison 
with Hampden for -self-command, and rectitude of 
intention ; while as the emancipator of a race he 
stood alone in solitary glory, without a rival and 
without a parallel. If Fame had approached him 
with the laurels of a conqueror, if Power had offered 
him a sceptre, and Ambition a crown, he would have 
scorned them all. He asked from man, he asked 
from God, but one culminating boon, — -peace, — 
peace on the bloody waters and the blighted shore. 

Alas ! such an enviable consummation to his career 
was denied. There are mysterious conferences of 
suspicious and guilt-laden men, ominous Sittings of a 
bat-like flock from Washington to Richmond and 
from Richmond to Canada, midnight interviews, lurk- 
ing spies, correspondence in cipher. A conspiracy 
against his life has long been maturing in minds 
capable of such things ; and, finally, the day is named, 
the place is appointed, and the parts of the bloody 
drama all distributed. On the evening of the Idth 
of April, 1865, at Ford's theatre in the city of 
Washington, the trigger of a pistol is pulled by a 
sneaking murderer who had crept up behind him 
all unwarned, and the report resounds through the 
startled assembly. From the private box which 
the president was known to occupy, an excited 
wretch, with a swart visage torn and convulsed 
by every passion, leaps upon the stage where he had 



498 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

last f)layed the bloodthirsty apostate, and brandish- 
ing a dagger in his outstretched hand, and exclaim- 
ing, " Sic semper tyrannis," vanished into night and 
darkness, leaving behind him horror, terror, and 
woe. The nation stands ag;hast. The crime of the 
Dark Ages has entered our history. Stealthy assas- 
sination has broken the sacred succession of the 
people's anointed, — the life of the best beloved 
of presidents is oozing from a murderous wound, 
— the soul of Abraham Lincoln is transferred from 
earth to heaven. 

At the identical moment that Booth entered the 
theatre, the assassin Payne presented himself at the 
door of Mr. Seward ; and, under pretence of an 
errand from his medical adviser, forced his way to 
the chamber entrance, where the maimed and suffer- 
ing secretary lay confined to his couch. He was 
confronted here by the son of Mr. Seward, who 
vainly endeavored to shield his father from death, 
and was felled by the butt of a pistol, which frac- 
tured his skull. Filial piety, in the person of the 
secretary's daughter, now interposed a brave but 
fragile form in front of the implacable murderer ; but, 
steeled against all pity or compunction, he threw 
himself upon the crippled victim, and inflicted three 
frightful stabs near the already shattered jaw of Mr. 
Seward. Payne was now grasped by an invalid sol- 
dier, Eobinson by name, whom he also savagely as- 
saulted and wounded with his blood-stained weapon ; 
but the faithful man clung to him with supernatural 
Ktrength. In this interval of respite, Mr. Seward 
succeeded in throwing himself off the side of the bed 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPERIENCE. 499 

farthest from the struggling pair ; while his daughter 
opened the window, and shrieked " Murder ! " with a 
frenzied voice. The porter rushed into the street 
with the same appalling cry. The assassin, perceiv- 
ing that a moment's delay would seal his doom, now 
broke from the determined gripe of the heroic sol- 
dier, and fled for his life. He was met on the first 
flight of stairs by another son of Mr. Seward, whom 
he cleared from his path by a blow of his dagger, but 
was again encountered in the hall by Mr. Haskell, 
who was in attendance on the secretary, whom he 
also stabbed, and thus opened his path to the street, 
where he mounted his horse, and rode unheeded into 
the consrenial blackness of nig-ht. 

Within a few days the successor of Mr. Lincoln, 
under his own sign-manual, with the counter-signa- 
ture of the acting secretary of state, proclaimed to 
the frantic nation that the infernal crimes of these 
assassins had been " incited, concerted, and procured 
by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, 
Ya., and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly 
Tucker, George N. Sanders, W. C. Cleary, and other 
rebels and traitors against the Government of the 
United States, harbored in Canada." 

We are concerned chiefly in this part of our theme 
with the burst of immeasurable wrath, w^ith the 
implacable indignation, which this awful arraignment 
excited against the whole of the defunct Confederacy, 
in the breast of the loyal millions. A yell of retalia- 
tion broke from the outraged nation, which no pacifi- 
cator could brave without drawing upon himself the 
frenzy of that maddened hour. Assassination bore 



600 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

Rucli a family likeness to the crimes in which that 
ruffian society had indulged previous to the war, and 
was so akin in turpitude with those which it had 
encouraged and applauded during its continuance, 
that, even without President Johnson's indictment, it 
would have been difficult to allay suspicions and pre- 
sumptions of criminal complicity on the part of the 
Confederate Government. The vengeance which it 
excited fell partly upon those who had at any time 
manifested either generosity or forbearance towards 
these public enemies. The humane and magnanimous 
terms of surrender which Grant had offered to the 
Army of Northern Virginia were assailed, as having 
encouraged the still defiant Rebellion to gather up its 
expiring strength, and strike an assassin's blow. 
Shall magnanimity be displayed, it was fiercely 
asked, to this remorseless race, who follow up the 
midnight conflagration of a crowded metropolis, the 
introduction of pestilence into healthy Northern 
breezes, the slow starvation of Andersonville, with 
the foul and unnatural murder of a president who 
was the impersonation of gentleness even to these 
implacable foes ? 

At this most inopportune epoch. Gen. Sherman ne- 
gotiated with Gen. Johnston the basis of a general 
peace. It was merely a skeleton memorandum, to 
be submitted for approval to the respective Govern- 
ments which these military diplomatists professed to 
represent. It impliedly conceded full belligerent 
ridits to the " ororanized rebellions " which constitut- 
ed the Confederacy, and placed arms and munitions 
of war at their capitals, and virtually acknowledged 
the legality of their governments. It practically 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPEDIENCE. 601 

abolished confiscation laws, and relieved rebels of 
(ivery degree, who had slaughtered our people, from 
all pains and penalties for their crimes. It put in 
dispute the existence of the new State of West Vir- 
ginia, which had been recognized by every depart- 
ment of the United-States Government. It subjected 
loyal citizens in the insurrectionary States to debts 
contracted for the purj^ose of carrying on the war. 
It was undoubtedly^ inspired by the adroit politician 
at the head of the fugitive Government, and w^as 
skilfully contrived to commit our authorities to a 
universal amnesty and act of oblivion. But, as it was 
merely a basis, without validity until it was ratified 
by the cabinet, and was forthwith transmitted to 
"Washington by Gen. Sherman, it hardly deserved the 
importance into which it was magnified, and the 
grave charges it incited against the distinguished 
officer, who, with heroism unsurpassed, had sealed his 
own devotion to the national cause by achievements 
which were the wonder and admiration of the world. 
In the inflamed condition of the public mind, it 
seemed an intolerable outrage, that immunity should 
be promised to assassins reeking with a martyr's 
blood. The renewal of war to the knife would have 
been more agreeable to the popular temper than any 
pacification, however acceptable in its terms or sound 
in its principles. Gen. Grant was forthwith des- 
patched to the headquarters of Sherman, armed with 
the discretionary power of relieving from conuiiand 
the favorite lieutenant, to whom he was bound by 
hooks of steel. It was a most delicate mission : there 
never was a period in the career of this much endur- 
when he was torn by such conflicting 



502 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

emotions. He immediately telegraphed to Sherman 
that the basis was rejected, and instructed him to 
terminate the truce which had been agreed upon 
while the submission of these propositions to the 
Government was pending. An imbroglio seemed im- 
minent, which might have marred the happiness for 
life of two officers who entertained for each other 
unqualified affection and esteem. Fortunatel}^, John- 
ston was in no condition to be overscrupulous respect- 
ing the terms of surrender ; and the exacerbation of 
the Northern mind warned him that this was no time 
for a general pacification. On receiving Sherman's 
despatch, which renewed hostilities, he solicited an- 
other parley. 

The cool discretion and loyal friendship of Grant 
were now equal to the occasion. He required nothing 
but this overture to open a clear pathway for con- 
ducting his mission to a satisfactory issue, without 
sacrificincr the noble friend and eminent officer whose 
deserts Avere pleading trumpet-tongued in his behalf, 
and whose unmerited obloquy would have been an 
indelible stigma to the countr}-, and an affront to hu- 
manity. It required great firmness to withstand the 
merciless exactions of the people's will in this tem- 
porary aberration of their reason. Grant was able, 
however, to be true to his comrade, without infidelity 
to the country. He said nothing of the popular clam- 
or, nothing of the unworthy suspicions of the cabinet, 
nothing of its cruel imputations, ^ nothing of relieving 

' The nature and implications of only a part of these suspicions will he mani- 
fest in the following extract from Gen. Sherman's report: — 

''Gen. Ilalleck had been chief of staff of the army at Washington, in 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPEKIENCE, 503 

him from command ; but urged him to meet Johnston, 
and renew the negotiations for surrender without en- 
tanghng the future pohcy of the administration. The 
meeting which he had advised was auspicious ; and it 
led to the capitulation of Johnston's army upon terms 
in substantial accord with those granted to Lee. Al- 
though they were too generous to be palatable to the 
feverish taste of the nation, they met with a sullen 
acquiescence, as a relief from " the basis" which had 

which capacity he must have received my official letter of April 18, wherein I 
wrote clearly, that, if Johnston's arm'- about Greensboro' were 'pushed,' it 
would ' disperse,' — an event I wished to prevent. About that time he seems to 
have been sent from Washington to Richmond to command the new military 
division of the James, in assuming charge of which, on the 22d, he defines the 
limits of his authority to be the ' Department uf Virginia, the Army of the Po- 
tomac, and such part of North Carolina as may not be occupied bj/ the command of 
Major- Gen. Sherman.' (See his General Orders, No. 1.) Four days latcsr, 
April 26, he reports to the secretary that he has ordered Gens. Meade, Sheri- 
dan, and Wright to invade that part of North Carolina which was occupied by 
my command, and pay 'no regard to any truce or orders of Tiine. They 
were ordered to 'push forward, regardless of any orders save those of Lient.- 
Gen. Grant, and cut off Johnston's retreat.' He knew at the time lie 
penned that despatch, and made those orders, that Johnston was not retreating, 
but was halted under a forty-eight hours' truce with me, and was laboring lo 
surrender his command, and prevent its dispersion into guerilla bands ; and tli:tt 
I had on the spot a magnificent army at my command, amply sufficient for all 
purposes required by the occasion. 

" The plan of cutting off a retreat from the direction of Burksvillc and Dan- 
ville is hardly worthy one of his military education and genius. When he con- 
templated an act so questionable as the violation of a ' truce,' made by compe- 
tent authority, within his sphere of command, he should have gone himself, and 
not have sent subordinates ; for he knew I was bound in honor to defend and 
maintain injown truce and pledge of faith, even at the cost of many lives. The 
last and most obnoxious feature of Gen. Halleck's despatch is wherein lio 
goes out of his way and advises that my subordinates, Gens. Thomas, Stone- 
man, and Wilson, should be instructed not to obey ' Sherman's ' commands. 

" This is too much ; and I turn from the subject with feelings too strong for 
words, and merely record my belief that so much mischief was never before em- 
braced in so small a space as in the newspaper paragraph headed ' Sherman's 
Truce Disregarded,' authenticated as ' official ' by Mr. Secretary Stanton, and 
published in the New- York papers of April 28." 



504 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

been pronounced disgraceful. In recurring to this 
interview with Grant, Gen. Sherman says, " I glory in 
the fact, that, during his three days' stay Avitli me, I 
did not detect in his language or manner one particle 
of abatement in the confidence, respect, and affection 
that have existed between us throughout all the 
varied events of the past war ; and, though we have 
honestly differed in opinion in other cases as well as 
this, still we respected each other's honest convictions." 
The attention of Gen. Grant was now preoccupied 
in organizing Gen. Sheridan's expedition to the Kio 
Grande. Its ostensible object was to quell disturb- 
ances in Texas, where protracted war was menaced 
by an inllammatory proclamation of E. Kirby Smith ; 
but it was understood that the tricolor which domi- 
neered the soil of a sister republic was there, in 
defiance of international law, and as part of a pro- 
gramme which was thus boldly published in an 
imperial manifesto : " We have an interest in the 
Kepublic of the United States being powerful and 
prosperous, but not that she should take possession 
of the whole Gulf of Mexico, thence command the 
Antilles as well as South America, and be the sole 
disburser of the products of the New World." ^ 
French dominion in Mexico was considered as a 
mere corollary of rebellion in this country. It was 
thought by military officers high in authority, that 
there could be no more flagrant provocation of war 
than a bold avowal by a foreign potentate that he 
had planted a monarchy on our borders for the pur- 
pose of curtailing our growth and crippling our 

1 Napoleon's letter of instructions to Marshal Forey. 



ADMINISTEATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 505 

commerce ; and many of them believed chat Gen. 
Sheridan's army was aimed at French usurpation in 
Mexico. I feel assured that this was Gen. Grant's 
own conviction; and that he was prepared at this 
time, as he will always be in the future, to defend 
the Republic against foreign as well as domestic ene- 
mies. Mr. Seward, however, protested against any 
armed intervention, with his protracted diplomacy ; 
and Sheridan's expedition suddenlj^ dissolved, like an 
apj)arition, and no one is able to explain to this day 
why it was organized or why it was abandoned. 

It was the rare felicity of Gen. Grant to issue to 
the armies which were now returning to their homes, 
the following valedictory order on the 2d day of June, 
1865: — 

"Soldiers of the Armies of the United States, — 
By your patriotic devotion to your country in the 
hour of danger and alarm, your magnificent fighting, 
bravery, and endurance, you have maintained the 
supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, over- 
thrown all armed opposition to the enforcement of 
the laws and the proclamations forever abolishing 
slavery, — the cause and pretext of the Rebellion, 
— and opened the way to the rightful authorities to 
restore order, and inaugurate peace on a permanent 
and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. 
Your marches, sieges, and battles, in distance, dura- 
tion, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dim the 
lustre of the world's past military achievements, and 
will be the patriot's precedent in defence of liberty 
and right in all time to come. In obedience to your 



506 LIFE OF GENEEAL GBANT. 

country's call, you left your homes and families, and 
volunteered in her defence. Victory has crowned 
your valor, and secured the purpose of your patriotic 
hearts ; and, with the gratitude of your countrymen 
and the highest honors a great and free nation can 
accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your 
homes and families, conscious of having discharged 
the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve 
these glorious triumphs, and secure to yourselves, 
fellow-countrymen, and posterity, the blessings of 
free institutions, tens of thousauis of your gallant 
comrades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy 
with their blood. The graves of these, a grateful 
nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and 
will ever cherish and support their stricken families." 
One month prior to this final crder, there were 
under his command 1,034,064 soldiers. If military 
history presents any thing so wonderful as the sudden 
absorption, without disquietude or public tumult, of 
this immense armed mass into the peaceful pursuits 
of society, my historical reading has not been compre- 
hensive enough to discover it. If any instance of 
superior rapidity in disbanding an army was ever 
exhibited than was displayed by Gen. Grant in the 
burdensome half-year between May and December, 
my knowledge of the annals of administrative labor 
has not informed me of the paramount exploit. It is 
a part of Grant's career which may not command the 
attention of those fond of thrilling adventure ; but it 
will hardly fail to be appreciated by those who read 
biography for the purpose of discovering how the 
life of a man contributes to the welfare of his coun- 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 507 

try. By untiring industry, Gen. Grant succeeded in 
mustering out 640,806 by Aug. 7, 719,338 by Aug. 
22, 741,107 by Sept. 14, 785,205 by Oct. 15, 800,963 
by Nov. 15, 1865. Tlie work was continued with 
equal industry after this date : and on Jan. 20, 1866, 
918,722 volunteers had been mustered out; Feb. 15, 
952,452; March 10, 967,887; May 1, 986,782; June 
30, 1,010,670; Nov. 1, 1,023,021, — leaving in service 
but 11,043 white and colored volunteers. Grant 
commenced in May, 1865, the work of discharging 
and returning to their homes 1,034,064 volunteers; 
and it is averred that it would have been completed 
within three months, but for the necessity of retain- 
ing in service a part of that force.^ 

1 " The reduction of the army has been attended by a corresponding reduc- 
tion of material and retrenchment of expenditures. The advanced depots of 
the quartermaster's department, which had been established as bases of opera- 
tions, have been broken up, the greater part of the material sold at 
advantageous rates, or concentrated in five principal depots and arsenals, and 
all unnecessary employees discharged. From May 1, 1865, to Aug. 2, 1866, 
over 207,000 horses and mules were sold for $15,269,075.54. About 4,400 
barracks, hospitals, and other buildings have been sold during the year, for 
$447,873.14. The sale of irregular and damaged clothing in store produced 
during the fiscal year the sum of $902,770.45. The fleet of 590 ocean trans- 
ports in service on July 1, 1865, at a daily expense of $82,400, was reduced 
before June 30, 1866, to 53 vessels, costing $3,000 per diem, and most of these 
have since been discharged, — ocean transportation being now almost entirely 
conducted by established commercial lines of steamers. Of 262 vessels which 
had been employed in inland transportation, at an expense of $3,193,533.28 
none were remaining in service on June 30, 1866; sales of river transports, 
steamers, and barges, during the year, are i-eported as amounting to $1,1 52,895.92. 
The rates of wagon transportation in the Indian country have also been re- 
duced by favorable contracts. The military railroads, which were operated 
during the war at a total expenditure of $45,422,719.15, and which are 
officially reported to have reached an extent of 2,630^ miles, and to have 
possessed 433 engines and 6,605 cars, have all been transferred to companies or 
boards of public works, upon condition of the adoption of loyal organizations 
of directors. Cash sales of railroad equipment to the amount of $3,466,739.33 
arc reported, and credit sales of $7,444,073.22 ; upon the latter there have 



508 LIFE OF GENEKAL GRAKT. 

In December, 1865, Grant made a tour of inspec- 
tion throughout the Southern States as far as Atlanta, 
Ga. He found upon his return that the disagreement 
between the Thirty-ninth Congress, which had then 
just convened, and the president was apparently irre- 
concilable. Mr. Johnson forthwith commenced that 
system of machination by which he has continuously 
endeavored to commit Grant to his peculiar policy, 
and to fill his sails with the popularity of the general- 
in-chief Grant had throughout life avoided all politi- 
cal entanglements : he had no political system ; he 
had but in a solitary instance expressed by the ballot 
his political preferences for the presidency. Since 
the conclusion of the war, he had meditated upon no 
scheme of reconstruction. Like many eminent states- 
men who had made this great problem the subject of 
speculation and study, his views of the anomalous 
relation of the insurgent States to the Constitution 
which they had waged war to destroy were exceed- 
mgly immature. The complicated nature of this 
question was not at this time apparent to the most 
prescient mind. Grant had the vague idea which was 
common at this period, that these rebellious States 
should be restored to their pristine condition as 
speedily as possible ; but what part the emancipated 

been paid, principal and interest, $1,200,085.18, leaving due to the United 
States, on June 30, 186G, principal and interest, $6,570,074.05. Tiic military 
telcj^raph, which attained an extent of 15,389 miles of lines constructed during 
the period of hostilities, with a total expenditure of $3,219,400 during the 
war, and $567,637 during the last fiscal year, has been discontinued, the mate- 
rial sold and disposed of, and the employees discharged, — only a few confidential 
operators being still retained for cipher correspondence with commanders of 
important districts," — Secretary of War's Report, Second Session of the Thirty- 
tti'ith Congress, 



ADMIKISTEATIVE EXPEEIEXCE. 509 

race were to play in reorganization, what cliange in 
the ratio of representation was required by the virtual 
abrogation of the slave basis, whether civil and polit- 
cal rights should be granted to the freedmen in 
communities which were to be regenerated, what 
irreversible guaranties were to be exacted from those 
who were to return to participation in government 
councils, were inquiries which had never engaged his 
attention for an hour. 

The actual condition of the Southern temper and 
animus towards the national Government was one 
essential element in the great problem of rehabilita- 
tion, to which special attention was now addressed. 
Gen. Carl Schurz had been commissioned by the 
president to visit these insurgent communities, and 
investigate this intricate theme. The conclusions 
which he had reached were not in harmony with the 
administrative programme of unconditional restora- 
tion ; and the president made a request of Gen. Grant, 
which was equivalent to a command, to express in 
writing the results of his observations on this tour of 
insj)ection. Grant drew up a report, which covers 
precisely two pages in the Senate publication of 
executive documents. He commences by saying that 
he has no information to impart respecting the State 
of Virginia, because he hastened through it without 
conversing or meeting with any of its citizens. That 
he spent one day in Ealeigh, one in Savannah, one in 
Augusta, and two days in Charleston. He then 
frankly declares the result of his mere surface exam- 
ination of this vast and entangled inquiry : " I am 
satisfied that the mass of thinking; men of the South 



510 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

accept the jDresent situation of affairs in good faith. 
The questions which have heretofore divided the 
sentiment of the people of the two sections, — slavery 
and State rights, or the right of a State to secede 
from the Union, — they regard as having been settled 
forever by the highest tribunal (arms) that man can 
resort to. I was pleased to learn, from the leading 
men whom I met, that they not only accepted the 
decision arrived at as final, but now that the smoke 
of battle has cleared away, and time has been given 
for reflection, that this decision has been a fortunate 
one for the whole country ; they receiving like benefits 
from it with those who oj^posed them in the field and 
in council. Four years of war, during which law was 
executed only at the point of the bayonet tlirough- 
out the States in rebellion, have left the people, 
possibly, in a condition not to yield that ready obe- 
dience to civil authority the American people have 
generally been in the habit of yielding. This would 
render the presence of small garrisons throughout 
those States necessary, until such time as labor returns 
to its proper channel, and civil authority is fully es- 
tablished. I did not meet any one, either those hold- 
ing places under the Government or citizens of the 
Southern States, who thinks it practicable to withdraw 
the military from the South at present. The white 
and the black mutually require the protection of the 
general Government. There is such universal acqui- 
escence in the authority of the general Government, 
throughout the portions of country visited by me, 
that the mere presence of a military force, without 
regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order. 



ADi^HNISTRATIVE EXPERIEXCE. 511 

The good of the country, and economy, require that 
the force kept in the interior, where there are many 
freedmen (elsewhere in the Southern States than at 
forts upon the seacoast, no force is necessary), should 
all be white troops. The reasons for this are obvious 
without mentioning many of them. The presence 
of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both 
by their advice, and by furnishing in their camps a 
resort for the freedmen for long distances around. 
White troops generally excite no opposition, .tnd 
therefore a small number of them can maintain order 
in a given district. Colored troops must be kept in 
bodies sufficient to defend themselves. It is not the 
thinking men who would use violence towards any 
class of troops sent among them by the general Gov- 
ernment, but the ignorant in some places might; and 
the late slave seems to be imbued with the idea that 
the property of his late master should by right bt;- 
long to him, or at least should have no protection 
from the colored soldier. There is danger of collis- 
ions being brought on by such causes. 

"My observations lead me to the conclusion, that 
the citizens of the Southern States are anxious to 
return to self-government within the Union as soon as 
possible ; that, whilst reconstructing, they want and 
require protection from the Government ; that they 
are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is 
required by the Government, not humiliating to them 
as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed 
out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be 
regretted that there cannot be a greater commingling 
at this time between the citizens of the two sections, 



512 LIFE OF GENERAL GRAKT, 

and particularly of those intrusted with the law- 
making power." 

On the second day of the first session of the Thirty- 
ninth Congress, a bill was introduced by the Hon. 
E. B. Washburne of Illinois, reviving the grade of 
general in the army of the United States. It was 
forthwith referred to the committee on military affairs. 
When the bill reached our table, it was committed to 
me by the chairman, " to examine and report." In 
the discharge of this duty, I first formed the personal 
acquaintance of Gen. Grant. 

It was understood from the outset, that the object 
of the bill was to recognize and reward the extraordi- 
nary services of the Republic's most illustrious and suc- 
cessful defender ; that this was its sole merit ; that 
its advocacy must rest on this ground alone. Previ- 
ous to reporting the bill to the House, I consulted 
Gen. Grant upon every objection which was raised or 
suggested in committee, and received from him satis- 
factory explanations of the rationale and purpose of 
the most important military movements in his career. 
I have been guided in many of the foregoing details 
by information which I gathered from himself in the 
course of this investigation. I also had the aid and 
benefit of the knowledge possessed by the staff-oflicers 
who had been with him in his campaigns ; and, with 
the assistance of maps and reports, all the battles 
were " fought o'er again," upon which any controver- 
sy had arisen. 

In the second session of the Fifth Congress, the first 
under the presidency of John Adams, in consequence 
of our dissensions with the French Republic, a provis- 



ADMIKISTEATIVE EXPEEIEITCE. 513 

ional army was authorized; and the grade of lieuten- 
ant-general was, for the first time in our history, 
created, and conferred ujDon George Washington. It 
was accepted by him, with the express reservation that 
he should "not be called into the field until the army 
was in a situation to require his services, or until it 
became necessary by the urgency of circumstances." ' 
During the recess which followed the adjournment, it 
was understood that Gen. Washington was not entire- 
ly satisfied with his new rank ; because it was inferior 
to that which he had held in the Revolutionary War, 
when he was general and commander-in-chief In 
deference to these scruples, the Fifth Congress, when 
it was holding its third session, authorized the presi- 
dent to appoint and commission an officer who should 
be styled "General of the Armies of the United 
States." 

I have not been able to discover that the grade con- 
templated by this act was ever filled ; and a presump- 
tion is raised that it was not, by a return from the war 
department in 1800, where Gen. Washington is still 
registered as lieutenant-general, with the mourned 
affix, "dead," — a mere formal entry, but vividly sug- 
gesting, in connection with a name so illustrious, that 

" The paths of glory lead but to the grave." 

I find, however, in the annals of Congress for 1801, 
that in the resolutions passed by both Houses on the 
death of Washington, which occurred on the 14th of 

1 Washington's letter to John Adams, accepting the office of lieutcnant-"-eQ- 
eral, datedJulj 13, 1798. ° 



514 LIFE OF GENEEAL GRANT. 

December, 1799, and after the approval of the bill 
creating the highest grade, that he is hailed as '•' Gen- 
eral of the Armies of the United States," which is the 
precise language of the statute to which I have re- 
ferred ; but it may also be explained by the title which 
he bore in the Revolutionary War. Whether it was 
ever conferred upon him or not, it is unquestionably 
true, that, unless his death had intervened or the prep- 
arations for a war with France had been suspended, 
he would have been General of the Armies of the 
United States. 

When I reported the bill to the House reviving the 
grade of general, gentlemen of both political parties 
participated in the debate, — if that may be called a 
debate, which, from the commencement to the close 
of the afternoon devoted to the subject, was an unin- 
terrupted eulogy of the officer for whom the rank 
was created. It was passed by the decided vote of 
a hundred and sixteen to eleven ; ^ and, in the Sen- 

1 Yeas — Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Baldwin, Banks, Baxter, 
Beaman, BidwcU, Bingham, Blow, Boutwell, Boyer, Brandegee, Bromwell, 
Broomall, Buckland, Clianlcr, Reader W.Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb,Conkling, 
Cook, Cullom, Dawson, Defrces, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Dodge, Donnelly, 
Driggs, Eekley, Eldridge, Eliot, Farquliar, Ferry, Finck, Glossbrenner, Grin- 
ncll, Griswold, Abncr C. Harding, Hart, Henderson, Holmes, Hotcldciss, Asa- 
hcl W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James 
Humphrey, Ingersoll, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, 
Laflin, Latham, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Lc Blond, Longvear, 
Lynch, Marshall, Marston, McRucr, Miller, Morris, Myers, Niblack, Noell, 
O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Phelps, Pike, Plants, Samuel J. Ran- 
dall, William H. Randall, Raymond, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rogers, 
Rolli"s, Ross, Rousseau, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Sitgrcavcs, 
Smith, Spalding, Stevens, Strousc, Taylor, Francis Thomas, Thornton, Trow- 
bridge, Ujjson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Warner, 
Elihu B. Washburnc, Henry D. Washburne, Welkcr, Whaley, James F. Wil- 
son, Windom, Winfield, and Wright— IIC. 

Nays — Messrs. Baker, ConVoth, Denison, Farnsworlh, Harris, 'Higby, 
liOau, McKce, Mcrcur, Morrill, and Stephen F. Wilson — 11. 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 515 

ate, the opinion in its favor was so nearly unanimous 
that the yeas and nays were not demanded. Grant 
was speedily nominated, confirmed, and commissioned 
to the new grade, and enjoys the linrivalled distinction 
of a pre-eminent rank in his profession, which no other 
officer had attained since the Constitution was adopted. 
I select a few paragraphs from these eulogies. 
Among the prominent Democrats who advocated the 
measure were Mr. Finck and Mr. Le Blond of Ohio, 
and Mr. Rogers of New Jersey. 

Mr. Finck said, — 

" Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that there would be no discordant 
voice in this House upon the passage of this bill. I had trusted, 
that, at least in reference to this testimonial of our regard to so 
distinguished a character as Lieut.-Gen. Grant, there would be but 
one voice here among the people's representatives. 

" I do not rise for the purpose of detaining the House, or saying 
any thing in regard to the history of Gen. Grant ; for this has 
been done fully and ably by those who have preceded me. I de- 
sire, however, to state that I shall vote for the passage of this bill, 
because I believe it due as a testimonial of the nation's gratitude 
to Gen. Grant. I honor him, sir, not only for his brilliant ser- 
vices in the field, but because of his magnanimity in the hour of 
triumph, and his genuine modesty. He has conducted himself 
throughout this war independent of party considerations or party 
intrigues, devoting himself to the vindication of the true honor of 
the country in maintaining the Constitution and preserving the 
Union. I trust, sir, that, when the vote shall be taken on the 
passage of the bill, it will be unanimous." 

Mr. Le Blond said, — 

** Trusting that the vote on the passage of the bill will be unaai- 
naous, or nearly so, I call for the yeas and nays." 



516 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

Mr. Rogers said, — 

" Sir, there is no man more willing than I to extend that gratitude 
to Gen. Grant, because his heroism, his bravery, his patriotism, 
his fortitude, and his determination, through this war, have been 
unequalled in the history of the civilized world. But, while he has 
shown this heroism and bravery, let us not forget the thousands 
and hundreds of thousands of men whom he led, — of the men who 
faced the battlements of the enemy, — of the men whose blood, whose 
valor, and whose patriotism equally consecrated the glorious vic- 
tories which the American army achieved during the bloody revo- 
lution through which we have just passed. It is a tribute which 
we owe, not only to Gen. Grant, but to the men who followed him, 
to those whom he commanded, that, while we extend to this brave 
and illustrious general the undying gratitude of the nation, we 
should at the same time extend to those brave and faithful soldiers 
the sentiment of respect and esteem which we cherish for every 
man who has engaged in this war for the suppression of the Re- 
bellion. 

" But, sir, Gen. Grant has that Avhich commends him to my res- 
pect much more than many others who were engaged in the war, 
— I mean his Christian charity, his meekness, and his honorable 
manhood in granting to those whom he had subdued the rights 
which civilization demands shall be extended to an enemy that is 
at your feet. 

" When Gen. Lee, whose ability I suppose will not be denied, as 
it never has been denied by any gentleman on this floor, surren- 
dered his sword to Gen. Grant, it was handed back to him, as a 
manifestation of that Christian charity and goodness oi' heart which 
should characterize a true-hearted hero when his enemy is at his 
feet. Gen. Grant Avas ready to extend to his conquered adversary 
those principles of civilized warfare Avhich our fathers extended to 
their enemies in the bloody days of the Revolution. 

" But, sir, this is no new office that is proposed to be given, if I 
understand it. If my recollection serves me right, in reading the 
history of this country, Geu. AVashingtou occupied the same posi- 
tion that we now expect to be given to Gen. Grant, or to such 
other general as the president of the ITuited States in his wisdom 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 517 

may see fit. I believe that the mautle of the illustrious Washing- 
ton may well fall upon the shoulders of Gen. Grant. I believe 
tiiat he has walked in the footsteps of the Father of his Country, 
and has shown an amiability of character and a tenderness of heart 
toward his foes that Washington did to those who had given aid 
and comfort to the followers and adherents of King George during 
the seven years of the Revolutionary War." 

Mr. Raymond of New York said, — 

" When we plunged into this great contest, it was without expe- 
rience, without knowledge of the means and resources that we 
could command to carry it through, without knowledge of our own 
temper and courage to face the crisis, without compactness, or 
solidity, or any of the elements of strength so essential to success. 
Gen. Grant, it is not too much to say, has shown us that we pos- 
sess them all. He has organized, disciplined, and welded them 
all, and carried the nation successfully through its great struggle. 
That, sir, is a service for which he will be remembered, not in this 
land alone, but in all lands where military prowess stands fore- 
most, as it does in every civilized nation of the world. 

"For that we cannot give him too much of recognition or of 
honor. Nor will this nation ever forget that it owes to him, in all 
human probability, the perpetuity of the great system of govern- 
ment which this nation was ordained to establish among the na- 
tions of the earth, and make perpetual and paramount over them 
all. And no words will sound his fitting eulogy. No words less 
gifted than those used by the distinguished gentleman from Con- 
' ueeticut can properly and sufficiently describe the long career of 
his services, the long catalogue of victories he has won, and the 
honors he has heaped upon his native land. 

" Ay, sir, unless gratitude shall fail, in coming generations noth- 
ing shall remind us of his name that does not remind us of his 
services ; and Avhen he shall die, and mingle his dust with the dust 
of our common earth, he shall descend to an honored grave covered 
with benedictions, — covered with the glorious recollections of the 
services he has rendered, — covered with every thing that a grateful 
people can accumulate around his memory so as to perpetuate it 
to successive generations. This is his reward, — if there can be any 



518 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, 

reward of national gratitude. This would suit, certainly, the quiet, 
tiie self-depreciating modesty of his noble and heroic character. 
And nothing more than this will be needed to satisfy him with 
what he has done ; for he never sought any thing but the conscious- 
ness that he was doing his duty, with all his energy and all his 
power." 

Mr. Delano of Ohio said, — 

" Let the minds of members here to-day recur to the year 1864. 
Let them remember how then the fate of this nation quivered, as 
it were, in uncertainty and in doubt. Let them remember how 
this man of iron will, of modest deportment, and of lion heart, 
took these gallant soldiers, the volunteers of a free people, and 
marched through the Wilderness with them, against the most com- 
pact and powerful army that the Confederacy had. See him lead- 
ing those brave men through the continuous battles of the Wilder- 
ness to Richmond, before it and round it, until, as he himself said, 
the shell of the Rebellion was crushed, and its hollowness exposed 
to the world. And then behold this man, Avhen Richmond had 
surrendered, modestly refusing to go into the city with display, to 
be there first to take possession of the citadel that had so long re- 
sisted our conquest. Behold him, sir, allowing others to march 
in in triumph ; because he saw that there was more work to be 
done, and that work he was determined to pursue to its final ac- 
complishment. 

" Leaving then the empty show and the place of honor, you 
see him giving up to subalterns the taking possession of the city 
of Richmond, while he goes on steadfastly in pursuit of his high 
purpose of making his work successful, and compelling the leader 
of the armies of the Rebellion to lay down his sword before him. 
That is one of the instances that evince the characteristics of the 
man, and that raised him so high in the world's estimation. 

" And now what do we offer him by this bill ? We offer him — 
what I will not allude to, but what we have heard so well described, 
and wliat lias been so happily depicted by the gentleman from 
Connecticut — we offer him a small boon. Is it in imitation of 
aristocratic or monarchical governments that it is proposed to do 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 519 

this ? jSTo : it is in imitation of the great Ruler of all, who be- 
stows blessings and rewards upon the just and righteous, and 
punishments upon the others. I am not here to-day to imitate 
what other nations have done for their high chieftains and great 
military men. But I desire to show my gratitude, with the grati- 
tude of this nation, in behalf of a great and a good man. Let us 
do it in imitation of divine authority, and not in imitation of man. 
Because other nations who have preceded us may have acted in 
the right way, that affords no reason for refusing to pursue a just 
path." 

Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania said, — 

" I believe that the moral and physical courage, the patience 
and skill, the operations in every way, which we have witnessed, 
indicate General Grant as one of the fittest men to command a 
great army and lead it to great results. I agree with the gentle- 
man from New York in being willing, not only to promote him to 
this office, but, as I understood him, and I hope I do not misunder- 
stand him, to a higher office, whenever the happy moment shall 
arrive." ^ 



1 Au Act to revive the grade of General in the United-States Army. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 
of America in Congress assembled, Tliat the grade of " General of the Army of 
the United States " be, and the same is, hereby revived ; and that the Pres- 
ident is hereby authorized, whenever he shall deem it expedient, to appoint, by 
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a general of the army of the 
United States, to be selected from among those olEcers in the military service 
of the United States most distinguished for courage, skill, and ability, who, 
being commissioned as general, may be authorized, under the direction and 
during the pleasure of the President, to command the armies of the United 
States. 

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the pay proper of the general shall 
be four hundred dollars per month ; and his allowance for fuel and quarters, 
when his headquarters are in "Washington, shall be at the rate of three hundred 
dollars per month, and his other allowances in all res]jects the same as are 
allowed to the lieutenant-general by the second section of the act approved 
February twenty-nine, eighteen hundred and sixty-four, entitled " An Act re- 
viving the grade of Lieutenant-General in the United-States Army; " and the 
chief of staff to the lieutenant-general shall be transferred, and be the chief of 
staff to the general, with the rank, pay, and emoluments of a brigadier-general 



520 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

During the year 1866, Gen. Grant was chiefly 
employed in supervising the military force which 
was stationed in the rebellious States, " to secure the 
execution of law, and to protect life and property 
against the acts of those who as yet will acknowl- 
edge no law but force," as he expresses it in his 
report. He describes in this sentence a condition of 
affairs which publicists term, " helium non cessans.'" 
Tumultous whites, still inimical to the Government 
which they had vainly essayed to destroy, lawless 
soldiers remanded from the standards of Lee and 
Johnston, indignant masters disgusted with the loss 
of man-servant and maid-servant, slaves just liberat- 
ed from hereditary bondage, were all mingled to- 
gether in a seething mass, with no law, or institutions 
of justice, powerful enough to control the license and 
crime of such a reckless and turbulent horde. No 
reconstruction laws were yet passed. The States 
were undergoing Mr. Johnson's empirical process of 
reorganization, and were in transition between the 
old State constitutions and the new ; which he had 
assumed the right of dictating, in order to harmonize 
their governments with the amended Constitution. 

in the army of the United States; and the act approved March tliird, eighteen 
hundred and sixty-five, entitled " An Aet to provide for a cliief of staff to the 
Licntenant-Gcncral commanding the Armies of the United States," is hereby 
repealed ; and the said general may select from the regular army for service 
upon his staff such number of aides, not exceeding six, as he may judge proper, 
>v]io during the terra of such staff service shall each have the rank, pay, and 
emoluments of a colonel of cavalry. And it is hereby provided, that, in lieu 
of the staff now allowed by law to the lieutenant-general, he shall be entitled 
to two aides and one military secretary, each to have the rank, pay, and 
emoluments of a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, during the term of sucii staff 
service. 

Approved July 25, 1866. 



ADMIXISTEATIVE EXPERIENCE. 521 

This vast territory of lawlessness and insubordination 
was chiefly ruled by the commanders of the military 
districts, who received their instructions from the 
general-in-chief More intricate problems of admin- 
istration are presented every month to his decision 
than a president of the United States ordinarily 
encounters in a four years' term. It is hard to con- 
ceive of a government more difficult, or which would 
more fully test the ability of a chief executive. The 
condition of the society which he ruled during this 
anarchical year can be seen in epitome by a few 
extracts from the reports of his subordinates. I se- 
lect but three out of an indefinite number, which 
alone w^ould swell this chapter to a wearisome length : 
'' The condition of civil affiiirs in Texas," says Gen. 
Sheridan, "w\as anomalous, singular, and unsatisfac- 
tory. I found the provisional governor, backed by a 
small portion of the population, had for his standard 
of loyalty, ' abhorrence for the Rebellion, and glory 
in its defeat;' while his successor, as actual governor, 
had for his standard of loyalty, ' pride in Rebellion, 
— that it was a righteous but lost cause, being over- 
powered by the Federal forces.' Both of these rep- 
resentatives of the civil law, entertaining opposite 
standards for the loyalty of their subjects, I was 
required to support, and did it to the best of my 
ability; but it has been embarrassing in the extreme. 
Gov. Hamilton, the provisional governor, was clam- 
orous for more troops, and, in several communica- 
tions to me, asserted, that the civil law could not be 
carried out, that freedmen would be killed, and 
Union men driven from the State, without military 



522 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

support; which I gave whenever it was possible. 
Gov. Throckmorton, the present governor, wants all 
the troops moved from the settled portions of the 
State ; asserting that the civil law was all right, that 
justice would be done to freedmen. Union men, and 
our soldiers in the courts. But justice is not done. 
To give you an instance of this : two soldiers were 
shot at Brenham, Tex., about two months ago ; they 
were unarmed, and offered no provocation. The 
grand jury could find no bill against their would-be 
assassins, but found a bill against Brevet-Major Smith, 
Seventeenth Infantry, for burglary, because he broke 
into the house of some citizen in his attempt to 
arrest these men. My own opinion is, that the trial 
of a white man for the murder of a freedman, in 
Texas, would be a farce ; and, in making this state- 
ment, I make it because truth compels me, and for 
no other reason." 

" Bands of guerillas," says Gen. Jeff! C. Davis, 
reporting from the military district of Kentucky, 
*^ and ' nes:ro reorulators ' soon increased in numbers 
and audacity ; and many lawless acts have been perpe- 
trated by them upon the defenceless and unoffending 
citizens, both white and black. The increase of rob- 
bery and lawlessness, and the ineffectual measures 
taken by the civil authorities to suppress these bands, 
rendered it my duty to offer to the citizens more 
protection from the military than I had before found 
necessary. 

" In Gallatin and surrounding counties, these bands 
became so formidable and bold in committing their 
robberies that I was compelled to send, about the 1st 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 523 

September last, a company of troops to Warsaw, 
also Bowling Green and Paducali, for the protection 
of the people. These troops still occupy their camps 
at these places ; and, judging from the present state 
of affairs, it will be necessary to continue their pres- 
ence there." 

"Two or three weeks ago," writes Gen. D. E. 
Sickles, from the military department of the South, 
"a party of men, disguised as blacks, went to the 
residence of Mr. Biglow, a teacher of a school for 
colored children in the town of Aiken, in Barnwell 
District, displaying weapons and threatening his life. 
They compelled him to leave the place, never to 
return, under pain of death. Mr. Biglow was re- 
quested to return by the post-commander, and was 
assured of protection, but declined to do so, fearing 
he could not, without more hazard than he was will- 
ins; to incur, resume his avocation in Aiken. This 
place has long been a favorite summer resort for 
invalids, and for people of wealth and refinement in 
the South. It is the headquarters of a military post, 
garrisoned by Company H, Fifth United-States Caval- 
ry. Brevet-Major Walker, United-States Army, the 
post-commander, has exerted himself with zeal and 
diligence to obtain sufficient testimony to justify the 
arrest of the perpetrators of this outrage; and al- 
though, as he reports to me, they are well known to 
the neighborhood, and suspected by himself, it has 
been as yet impossible to obtain reliable testimony 
on the subject. The civil authorities have taken no 
action in the case, so far as I am informed." 

Now, how did Gen. Grant address such enormities 



524 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

in these communities, when he was chiefly responsi- 
ble for the maintenance of the law, and the preser- 
vation of the peace? I can but just glance at his 
voluminous code of edicts. By his general orders, 
he requires all civil officers in each of these districts 
to obey all laws for its government emanating from 
competent authority, the proclamations of the presi- 
dent, and the laws of Congress. He disqualifies from 
civil office all who belong to the classes excepted 
from amnesty, or who refuse to take and subscribe 
the amnesty oath. He continues in operation the 
provost courts, but confines their jurisdiction to 
cases which concern persons of color, and abrogates 
them altogether when such persons become legally 
competent to sue and testify in the State courts with 
the same rights and remedies which are accorded 
to other persons. He issues a general order which 
directs military officers to arrest offenders, and detain 
them in custody, in cases where the civil authorities 
fail, neglect, or are unable, to arrest and bring offend- 
ers to trial. He issues another, which commands 
military officers to pursue, and summarily punish as 
guerillas, all armed bands and "regulators." He 
approves, moreover, of an order issued by one of his 
subordinates, which prohibits associations or assem- 
blages composed of persons who served in the rebel 
armies, and having for their object the perpetuation 
of any military or other organization engaged in the 
Rebellion. 

With the close of the second session of the Thirty- 
ninth Congress, a still more onerous burden wa.s laid 
on the Atlantean shoulders which had borne tlie weight 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 525 

of " helium jiagrans et helium non cessans''' No one 
denies that he has faithfully executed the responsible 
duties imposed upon him by the reconstruction acts of 
Congress. To the extent of his power he has carried 
them out, not merely perfunctorily, but with a zealous 
endeavor that all their provisions shall be obeyed 
in every particular, and that all their intermediate 
purposes, as well as the grand object to which they are 
addressed, shall be speedily and successfully achieved. 
Whatever may have been his own private views, he 
has rigidly adhered to that maxim which disclaims 
the right of an executive ofi&cer to be warped by his 
own personal theories in the execution of law. 
Against the frowns of power, he has uniformly firmly 
sustained the commanders of districts who are faith- 
fully engaged in administering these laws. He has, 
in my judgment, clearly proved by numerous recorded 
acts that he is in thorough accord with those great 
principles of equality and justice which it is the 
design of these wise enactments to guarantee by the 
inviolable sanctions of organic law. He has practically 
co-operated with Congress in launching the enfran- 
chised Republic on a dazzling orbit of probit}, justice, 
and freedom. He has shown by a long series of 
orders, which are more conclusive proofs of sincerity 
than all the speeches which can be placed between 
the covers of " The Congressional Globe," that it is 
his firm conviction that civil rights and immunities 
are the logical sequence of emancipation. 

But if mere words are required in confirmation of 
deeds, they may be found in his emphatic protest 
against the removal of an officer whose sympathy 



526 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

with Congressional reconstruction is beyond all dispute 
and cavil : " I earnestly urge, in the name of a patri- 
otic, people, who have sacrificed hundreds of thou- 
sands of loyal lives, and thousands of millions of treas- 
ure, to preserve the integrity and union of this coun- 
try, that this order be not insisted on. It is, unmis- 
takably, the expressed wish of the country, that Gen 
Sheridan should not be removed from his command. 
This is a republic where the will of the people is 
the law of the land. I beg that their voice may be 
heard. Gen. Sheridan has performed his civil duties 
faithfully and intelligently. His removal will only be 
regarded as an effort to defeat the laws of Congress. 
It will be interpreted by the unconstructed element of 
the South — those who did all they could to break 
up this government by arms, and now wish to be the 
only element consulted as to the method of restoring 
order — as a triumph. It will embolden them to re- 
newed opposition to the will of the loyal masses, 
believing that they have the Executive with them." 

He was appointed secretary of war, in pursuance 
of a purpose which began when his observations upon 
the political status of the insurgent States were ex- 
acted by the " request " of a commander-in-chief, which 
was continued when he was impressed as chief sat- 
ellite to attend the sun in its revolution round the 
circle ; and which had for its ultimate aim the under- 
mining of his popularity, by entangling him in the 
meshes of a policy distasteful to the loyal nation. 
When he showed that he could fliithfully and eco- 
nomically administer the War Department, and, by his 
business dexterity, was increasing rather than forfeit- 



ADMINISTEATIYE EXPERIENCE. 527 

ing the esteem of his countrymen, an attempt was 
made to inveigle him into a violation of law, by one 
who was afraid to assume the responsibility himself 
When he proved too shrewd to be made the cat's-paw 
of an unscrupulous superior, a question of veracity 
was raised, which only proved that his life-long repu- 
tation for truth was toe well established to be demol- 
ished by discredited testimony. 

Of the unsurpassed value of the services of Ulysses 
S. Grant to the nation in its extremity of peril, of 
his qualities as a general, of his genuine devotion to 
the national welfare, of his unsullied patriotism, of 
his unambitious, unaspiring, self-depreciating nature, 
I can add nothing which will corroborate the forego- 
ing record of his life. Nor need I repeat again, that 
his utter want of what is called style, or dramatic 
presentation of himself in speech or action, his free- 
dom from affectation, his undemonstrative manner 
and deportment, frequently hide his sterling charac- 
teristics from the superficial observer. Judged by his 
mere words. Grant is nothing ; judged by his actions, 
he can make no pretensions to brilliant genius, to pro- 
fundity of acquirement, to erudition in any depart- 
ment of human thought. Nature endowed him with 
strength of will, an equable temper, a sound, practical, 
well-balanced understanding; and nurture has con- 
tributed to develop and foster these natural endow- 
ments. From his West-Point education, he derived 
substantial and useful knowledge, and the edge and 
discipline which scientific and mathematical study im- 
parted to an intellect whose native temper was for 
hard service rather than glittering display. His ex- 



528 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

perience in the Mexican War, in frontier life, and in 
rough civil employment, invigorated his practical 
resources, familiarized him with the various phases 
of American character, and trained him in the homely 
task of American life. His hard labor in the civil 
war strengthened and nerved the sturdy vigor of his 
understanding and will, and endowed him with that 
self-reliance which can only be acquired in its pleni- 
tude by the habitual mastery of those difficulties 
which are pronounced insurmountable. His varied 
commerce with the world, and the vicissitudes of his 
career, have made him thoroughly acquainted with 
men ; and he is not easily beguiled or deceived. He 
has that stout independence of j^urpose which is not 
pliant to the purposes of others. There is in him 
naught of that vacillation or oscillation which is fatal 
to all earnest decision; but he makes up his mind 
rapidly, and forthwith bends every energy to the ex- 
ecution of its irreversible behests. This combination 
of endowments, accomplishments, experience, have 
invested him with that rare force and volume of 
power which conquers and commands succ(3ss. He 
has strength of conviction, combined with deference 
for the popular will, and none of that inflexible self- 
sufficiency which discards the advice and scorns the 
opinion of others. Justice is with him a predominat- 
ing attribute. He is devoted to the right, without 
professing any supercilious contempt for the ex- 
pedient. He is faithful in his friendships ; sincere in 
his professions ; superior to all envy ; generous in his 
appreciation and commendation of others ; truthful, 
honorable, upright, in all his dealings and converse 



ADMII?7ISTEATIVE EXPEEIENCE. 529 

with his fellow-men ; and ardent and tender in his 
domestic affections. 

I have aimed to present a record of the achieve- 
ments of Grant, that his countrymen may thereby 
form an estimate of his character and capacity in the 
only practicable mode. Before he can be appreciated, 
you must be disabused of the value of words as any 
criterion of attributes, and our American habit must 
be reversed, of judging men by what they say, and 
not by what they do. No public man who ever 
lived has illustrated himself less by language, either 
oral or written. Grant must be estimated by his 
actions alone ; for what he says will never aid your 
"comprehension of the man. He talks, and talks well, 
but his conversation reveals merely the surface 
of his mind ; and what of genuine resource is in its 
depths, you must investigate by the process I have 
indicated. No one doubts that he has tenacity of will ; 
but I defy you to find satisfactory proof of it in any 
of his sayings. No one disputes his patriotism ; but 
what ardent harangue has he ever uttered ? No one 
fails to recognize his manly friendship for Sherman ; 
but it is not demjonstrated by word or manner. No 
one disbelieves in his courage ; but you will search 
in vain to discover it from his utterances. What 
there is in him as a warrior, you must study from 
the way in which he translated his thoughts into 
deeds ; for you will never learn it by his speeches. 
What of administrative power there is in him, you 
must learn from the record ; for you will be deceived 
by his professions. Meeting every emergency in the 

H 



530 LIFE OF GENERAL GRANT. 

varied control he has exercised over turbulent States 
and disorganized societies by the most appropriate 
measure of redress, he yet disclaims ability to govern. 
He is, in short, a man of action, and not of words. 
He believes in the essential equality of all mankind, 
and that the time is now for its embodiment into 
government ; but we must learn this from the zeal- 
ous discharge of duties which contribute to that 
end, instead of from any pledges which he has given, 
or political platform which he has indorsed. He 
believes that what is called the " policy of the nation" 
should receive its direction and guidance from the 
leo-islative, rather than the executive branch of the 
Government ; but this is taught by his deeds, and not 
by his declarations, unless it may be inferred from 
the avowal, "No theory of my own will ever stand 
in the way of executing any order I may receive 
from those in authority over me." A comparison of 
action with words, as a test of executive ability, recalls 
a quaint specimen of Lord Bacon's wisdom: "The 
speech of Themistocles the Athenian, which was 
haughty and arrogant in taking so much to himself, 
had been a grave and wise observation and censure 
applied at large to others. Desired at a feast to touch 
a lute, he said ' he could not fiddle, but yet he could 
make a small town a great city.' These words (hol- 
pen a little with a metaphor) may express two differ- 
ing abilities in those that deal in business of estate : 
for, if a true survey be taken of counsellors and states- 
men, there may be found (though rarely) those which 
can make a small state great, and yet cannot fiddle ; 
as, on the other side, there can be found a great many 



ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 531 

that can fiddle very cunningly, but yet are so far from 
being able to make a small state great, as their gift 
lieth the other way, — to bring a great and flourishing 
estate to ruin and decay. And certainly those degen- 
erate arts and shifts, whereby many counsellors and 
governors gain both fivor with their masters and esti- 
mation with the vulgar, deserve no better name than 
fiddling; being things rather pleasing for the time, 
and graceful to themselves only, than tending to the 
weal and advancement of the state which they serve." 
It should be remembered, in this great national 
crisis, that the present generation is not only the heir 
of all the past, but the guardian of all the future. 
The time to mould the rising eras and ages of a con- 
tinent is the time in which we are permitted to live, — 
the time to ingraft upon imperishable laws and in- 
stitutions the essential eauality of all races and 
colors is the present time. It is a fortunate law of 
human progress, that the living inhabitants of every 
era and period, surrounded by no Chinese wall of 
exclusiveness, can live no isolated or separate exist- 
ence by themselves. As the past is in us and of us, 
like our own infancy and childhood, so shall it and 
we be in and of the future, — an essential part of its 
body as well as of its spirit, — of its useful arts, handi- 
craft, and daily life, as well as of its religion, philo- 
sophy, literature, and civil institutions. It is a 
weighty aphorism of Pascal, " that not only each 
mai^ increases daily his store of knowledge, but all 
men united make an increasing progress in it, as the 
universe grows older ; so that the whole succession 
of human beings, during the entire course of the 



532 LIFE OF GENERAL GEANT. 

ages, ought to be considered as one man, always 
living and incessantly learning." To the abstract 
eye there are no such divisions as past, present, and 
future. The whole human family everywhere and 
" every tvJien'' is but one great consolidated man, 
"always living, incessantly learning." Each genera- 
tion toils for all its successors ; and we should struggle 
to add stores of knowledge, reforms, inventions, dis- 
coveries, to our inheritance from the past, that the 
patrimony of the race may go on accumulating, 
like a mighty river, until it reaches the last gen- 
eration, — the final heir of the perfected civilization 
of all mankind. 

Government is the corporation established to give 
the character of identity and individuality to the 
political progression of each successive man, and 
successive generations of men, in accordance with 
this beneficent provision which supplements the 
limited faculties of the individual by the infinite 
faculties of the race. The existence of such a gov- 
ernment here, which is the heritor of all the pohtical 
reforms and benefactions of the past, enforces upon 
every generation the duty of seeing that it shall 
incessantly rise and exalt itself as it descends the 
ages; that it shall gather in the liberal convictions, 
the ameliorating spirit, of statesman after statesman, 
generation after generation, keeping step with the 
progress of mankind, marching to the music of en- 
franchisement, — the vanguard always of public opin- 
ion, — "mewing its mighty youth," and regenerating 
itself, as the race climbs to loftier ideals of gov- 
ernment, and craves their embodiment. Let our 



AD^nNISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE. 533 

republic be the perpetual reflex of man's most ex- 
alted theories, the perpetual register of his highest 
aspirations, the perpetual exemplar of the degree 
of political happiness which man attains at every 
step of his progress to complete political fruition ! 



FDflS. 



lbA^?9 



